Grover Cleveland Honors Park

Cleveland Memorial Park is a neighborhood greenspace located on Chapel Street, south of Clinton Street, in the Village. The park has seen many names over the centuries, and received its current name in 1994 during the Village of Fayetteville’s sesquicentennial celebration.

Park Hours
Open till dusk

Park Amenities
This is a neighborhood greenspace

Park History:
Early maps (1860 and 1874) show the park with the name “Clinton Park” and it is thought that Fayetteville may have done so to emulate the Clinton Square area in the City of Syracuse. At this time, Chapel Street was known as Water Street and was narrowed by the Ledyard waterway had a small reservoir (probably to prevent erosion) at the point where it turned west.

The reservoir had been filled in by 1887 when President Grover Cleveland visited his boyhood home for a few hours. The welcoming ceremony was held in this location, then identified as “Clinton Park.” President Cleveland spoke from the platform and recalled that had used the reservoir here as a swimming place.

Known in the 1920s as Lincoln Park, summer band concerts were held here.

In the 1960’s, the Village agreed to use the land as a parking lot for employees of the nearby industrial building. In 2004 the parking spaces were reclaimed and grass was planted, complementing the planting of trees completed by the Fayetteville Tree Commission in 2000.