Indian Well State Park
State park in Fairfield County, Connecticut
Indian Well State Park is a public recreation area occupying 153 acres (62 ha) on the west bank of Lake Housatonic, an impoundment of the Housatonic River, within the city limits of Shelton, Connecticut. The state park's scenic features include a 15-foot (4.6 m) horsetail waterfalls with splash pool at bottom. The park is managed by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
History
The park was created in 1928 when the State Park and Forest Commission purchased 150 acres which included nearly two miles of riverfront from the Ousatonic Water Power Company. Beginning in the 1990s, the park became the scene of annual regattas hosted by the New Haven Rowing Club.
Activities and amenities
The park is traversed from north to south by the blue-blazed Paugussett Trail. A boat launch provides access to Lake Housatonic, which is a state Bass Management Lake with smallmouth and largemouth bass, white catfish, white perch, yellow perch, American eel, sunfish, and carp. The park also offers lifeguard-supervised swimming and picnicking facilities.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Indian Well State Park” is state park in Fairfield County, Connecticut. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Indian, Well and State, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “state park in Fairfield County, Connecticut” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14714955. Authority coordinates are 41.337, -73.122. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1928.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Indian Well State Park”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Indian Well State Park primary sources, Indian Well State Park archive and Indian research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Indian Well State Park”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Indian Well State Park” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.