Where did Park Avenue get its name? Why is that small nude statue in the Village Hall?
On the 1860 map of the Village, the first after incorporation, the area between Main Street and Vernon Street, now “the park”, was “Common Hall”. Possibly developed in a way similar to the old New England villages where the public buildings surrounded the village square, in that in 1827 the Methodist Episcopal Church was built on the southwest corner of the Common in 1841 the Universalist Church was erected on Main Street at the end of the Common, and in 1843 the Academy was built across from the Methodist Church. At the southeast end of the Common, District #1 school was built in 1846 with the third addition in 1898. Across the corner the Vernon Hotel was erected by 1874, becoming the Grove House by 1886 and burning in 1899. In 1889 the Presbyterian Church was built at the east end of the Common on Vernon Street. The new Methodist Church was built on its site in 1899. Trees on either side of the park were planted between 1878-1884. The coming of the trolley in 1908 created a furor as
