Mary Kronenwetter presents Corbin’s Animal Garden on
September 16 th at 10am.
In the late 1800s, the banking, railroad, and real estate mogul Austin
Corbin returned to his hometown in Newport, New Hampshire. He built
a grand estate and bought out his neighbors’ farms to create an 22,000
acre wildlife game preserve stocked with boar, bison, bighorn sheep,
antelope, elk, Chinese pheasant, and other imported animals. The grounds
eventually became a prestigious private hunting park and hosted illustrious
guests including Theodore Roosevelt, the Prince of Wales, Cornelius
Vanderbilt, Joe Dimaggio, Rudyard Kipling, and Augustus Saint Gaudens.
This illustrated slideshow features archival images and a discussion of the
complicated history and legacy of New Hampshire’s own American Gilded
Age robber baron. The talk will also highlight the important legacy of the
role the Corbin family and park naturalist Ernest Baynes played in the
saving of the American bison from extinction.
This program is free and open to the public.
