Gay City State Park

About Gay City State Park

Gay City State Park is known for its lakeside beach, but the park also reveals a lot about Connecticut geology. The park in Gay City offers a glimpse into Connecticut's industrial roots and offers countless outdoor fun opportunities, including hiking, biking, canoeing, kayaking, fishing and a variety of other outdoor activities.

When entering the park from Route 85, follow Parkstraße and follow the fork in the road and exit it.

At the end of this road, a white path leads to the mill area, and the first large structure on the white paths is the old mill area.

The foundations of the mill are visible, as is a slide that leads to a small stream that flows by. It is mainly gneiss, a highly metamorphic rock that was exposed to intense heat and pressure during the formation. The separation of light and dark minerals is easily recognized as gnitch by giving it a banded texture.

On the mill site, the stream on the right has a high iron concentration in the water, which makes the water red.

After crossing the creek, the blue path begins, in the middle of which the path is marked with gneiss rocks.

A new type of rock was uncovered in the pond, amphibolite, a metamorphic rock that emerged about 1.5 million years ago from the formation of a new type of rock, gneiss. The dark minerals contained in it are amphibians, elongated, black, splintered minerals. Originally it was probably basalt, slate or limestone, before it turned into a meetamorphosis. In the rocks near the ponds we have uncovered a large amount of AmphibOLite - a form of metabolic rock that is formed by the transformation of the rock into the mineral amphibolic acid, an alkaloid and a mineral of the same name.

Pegmatite is a combustible rock that is formed when molten rock is buried deep below the surface.

Molten rocks cool down by being isolated far below the surface, making the crystals very large. In fact, pegmatite crystals can reach lengths of up to 12 m, and amphibolite stones have pegmativae.

Pegmatite faults are of great interest to mineral collectors because they can contain a variety of rare minerals. Pegmatites contain quartz, biotite, moscovite and feldspar, and generally small pegmatites usually have the same composition as granite, only coarser.

After observing the amphibolites, we started our hike on the red trail, and along the red trail there were several outcrops of gneiss rocks. Interestingly, a large Gnesiss eruption was parallel to the fault, right in front of us and to our right.

These fractures resulted in clean fractures that gave the rock a box-like shape, with a large number of small fractures in the middle of the rock and a number of smaller fractures along the edges.

Along the way you will see a slate foreland that juts out of the way and is part of the Collins Hill Formation.

Shale is a type of metamorphic rock that has been exposed to intense heat, pressure and hot liquids.

Shale contains elongated minerals by definition and contains biotites, muscovite and garnets. The high proportion of platinum minerals allows slate to be easily split into thin flakes or plates. It is rusty and can easily break off and contains a variety of minerals such as iron, nickel, copper, lead, iron oxide, manganese, cobalt, silver, gold, platinum, palladium, silica and many others.

The sand is mainly quartz and feldspar, but you will find more gneiss and bring some sand to the park. Near the pond there is an artificial waterfall and beach, as well as sand carried from the beach and sandbags around the ponds.

The car park and beach are lined with large boulders believed to be Glastonbury's gneiss formations, which are not exposed in the park. Some paths lead to densely wooded areas, others to a marshy area on the edge of the parks. Along the way there are exposed outcrops and boulders, but not in this park is the Glastonbury Glacier Formation visible.

The name "Gay City" is derived from the now extinct mill town that once inhabited the site, and its former existence is now referred to as the Gay City Mill, the oldest mill in the state of Connecticut.

Gay City was founded in 1796 by a religious sect led by Elijah Andrus, and soon 25 or more families living in the community at the time were homosexual. The inhabitants remained strictly on their own and existed as clearly delimited from the neighbouring communities.

The fate of the Gay City changed with the success or failure of several companies. A sawmill was built on the Black Ledge River, and the houses were built of wood, but not until the end of the 18th century.

It was a successful business until it came under extreme pressure from various blockades during the war of 1812. The mill burned down, which caused the decline of the town, which led to the exodus of many people from the town and the factories. When many of his young men were killed in the fighting of the Civil War, father Sumner's son built a paper mill to revive it. But the mill burned down in 1864, leading to the decline of the town and the emigration of thousands of people to other towns.

The programme aims to encourage young people to learn about the nature of the camp and youth groups and campsites are available to qualified youth organisations. The group camps are located in the park, where the group leaders have access to a variety of activities, such as hiking, camping, canoeing, swimming, fishing, hiking and camping.

A comprehensive pathway system is in place, voluntarily supported by the Connecticut Forest Park Association. For information about voluntary hikes throughout the state, contact the State Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection (DNR) at (866) 888-5555.