Discover 8 hidden attractions, cool sights, and unusual things to do in Manchester (United States). Don't miss out on these must-see attractions: Hop River State Park Trail, Lutz Children's Museum, and Wickham Park. Also, be sure to include Union Village Historic District in your itinerary.
Below, you can find the list of the most amazing places you should visit in Manchester (Connecticut).
Table of Contents
Hop River State Park Trail
State park in Connecticut. Hop River State Park Trail is a Connecticut rail trail that winds for 20.8 miles eastward from Colonial Drive in the town of Manchester to the Air Line State Park Trail S. in the town of Windham. The trail parallels the Hop River for much of its length. It is owned and operated by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, with upgrades and maintenance done by town forces and community volunteer groups in coordination with the state. The trail is used for hiking, biking, horseback riding, and cross-country skiing.[1]
Lutz Children's Museum
Museum in Manchester, Connecticut. The Lutz Children's Museum is a non-profit children's museum located in Manchester, Connecticut, United States. Originally known as the Lutz Junior Museum, it was developed on March 4, 1953 by a vote of the Manchester Parent Teacher Association Council. Their objective was to provide supplemental enrichment to students in their classrooms and asked the community to come forth with ideas.
Hazel P. Lutz, the Chairperson of the Art Department in Manchester and also a world traveler, approached the PTA with the suggestion to establish a community youth museum. During her travels, she had collected a variety of artifacts and trinkets that she believed would be of interest to children. Hoping to use these items as educational tools, she established a “museum” in the storage closet of her schoolroom. Her collection grew through the donations of others and began to include items that could be related to most academic disciplines. From her storage closet, the PTA offered the museum its first official home in the basement of the Waddell School. By 1957 the rapidly expanding museum possessed hundreds of kits and had a volunteer league of one hundred people. The museum was established as a private non-profit organization 1958. The Board of Education also offered the museum a new home in June of that same year, and the museum was moved to 126 Cedar Street, adjacent to Washington School. The building was originally built by the Cheney family, owners of the nearby mills, in 1859 as a school for their children and children of factory workers. On September 26, 1958 the museum opened its new doors to the public. The museum now had a home that would allow the display of its collection, the exhibit of live animals, and a space to hold year-round classes for children.
The museum continued to grow and by 1982, the museum had outgrown its home on Cedar Street and the Town of Manchester had proposed a larger building. The former South School building, situated beside the Charter Oak Reservoir with scenic views of the Manchester Country Club, was proposed as a new location. The museum accepted the larger building and adopted a new name at the same time. The Lutz Junior Museum became the “Lutz Children’s Museum."[2]
Address: 247 S Main St, 06040-6561 Manchester
Wickham Park
Park in Manchester, Connecticut. Wickham Park is a nonprofit, private foundation in Manchester and a small part of East Hartford, Connecticut. The park contains 280 acres of gardens, open fields, woodlands, ponds, picnic areas and sports facilities, among other attractions.[3]
Address: 1329 Middle Tpke W, Manchester
Union Village Historic District
The Union Village Historic District encompasses the core of a historic 19th-century residential mill village in Manchester, Connecticut. Radiating north and west from the junction of Union Street and North Main Street, the area was developed in the first half of the 19th century has a company town, but evolved into a mixed working-class community in the 20th century. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.[4]
Manchester Historic District
The Manchester Historic District encompasses a historic planned industrial and residential area of Manchester, Connecticut. Located west of the town's Main Street area, the district includes most of the Cheney Brothers Historic District, a National Historic Landmark District covering the silk manufacturing mills, worker housing, and owner residences of the Cheney family, as well as other surrounding residential areas related to the growth and development of Manchester under the Cheney's influence. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.[5]
Manchester Main Post Office
The Weiss Center, formerly the U.S. Post Office-Manchester Main is a historic building at 491 Main Street in Manchester, Connecticut. It was built in 1931 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 for its architecture. It includes Colonial Revival, Classical Revival, and Georgian Revival architectural features.[6]
Pitkin Glassworks Ruin
Historical place in Manchester, Connecticut. The Pitkin Glassworks Ruin is a historic industrial archaeological site at the junction of Parker and Putnam Streets in Manchester, Connecticut. It contains the remains of one of the oldest glass factories in New England, established in 1783. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.[7]
Manchester Community College
Community college in Manchester, Connecticut. Manchester Community College is a public community college in Manchester, Connecticut. Founded in 1963, it is the third-oldest of the twelve community colleges governed by the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities system and has graduated more than 23,000 students since the first class in 1965.
MCC is the largest of the state's community colleges, serving more than 15,000 students a year, with nearly 6,000 undergraduate students in credit programs, and more than 7,000 credit-free and 2,000 credit extension students each year. It has an annual budget of more than $31 million.
In 1996, MCC was named an "Honor Institution" by the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation due to its "remarkable history of nurturing and encouraging students' academic and intellectual abilities and motivation." The college remains the only American community college to have been recognized as such.
MCC is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.[8]
Address: 60 Bidwell St, 06040 Manchester