118 ~© FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
was done, and the strenuous cohorts of the West End had 
won. 
In December, 1896, the provisional estimate of cost for 
“a park on the West Side” was $75,000. One year later the 
cash disbursements for land and buildings there amounted 
to $172,234. This amount, however, covers about all that 
has been paid for land in that park. The improvements have 
now cost something over $100,000. The area is twenty- 
three acres. The varied topography has given opportunity 
for diversified landscape effects, with a small lake or pond 
feature, attractive stretches of turf, and effective tree and 
shrub plantations. 
About $40,000 in value of the acquired land on the west 
side of the park, originally intended for a parkway, is still 
held in the name of the Fidelity Trust Company—the mat- 
ter of the parkway extension having been suspended—and 
has thus remained in statu quo for years. 
EAGLE ROCK RESERVATION. 
Since “ye olden time” and the days of Carteret, and of 
“East and West Jersey,”’ Eagle Rock has been famed for its 
commanding views and attractive natural surroundings. 
For generations residents and sojourners in Essex and 
neighboring counties have made it a place of pilgrimage to 
enjoy the views, and the numbers have increased with the 
growth of population and the added facilities for reaching 
“the rock.” Situated as this point is, on the bold precipi- 
tous cliff of the Orange Mountain, 600 feet above tide water, 
yet but a short air line distance from it, with Montclair, 
Bloomfield and the beautiful Llewellyn Park on the side of 
the mountain in the immediate foreground, and the 
Oranges, Newark, New York, and the hills of Staten Island 
in view beyond—what more fitting place could be selected 
for the first choice of the outlying parks than this. 
It was, therefore, quite within the natural order of things 
that the Park Commission should turn its attention to the 
location of a park at this place as soon as the selection of 
park sites was taken up. Immediately after the Braneh 
