Acorn Urban Park

Visit this small park in downtown Silver Spring and enjoy the iconic Acorn Gazebo, spring grotto, and beautiful shade trees. The rustic gazebo, a folly from the 19th century, once adorned the grounds of Francis Preston Blair’s plantation called Silver Spring.  In 1850 Blair commissioned its construction to commemorate the oak tree where he proposed to Eliza in 1812.

History

Around 1840, Blair, a newspaper publisher and friend of President Andrew Jackson, discovered the mica-flecked spring.  Smitten by it, Blair and Eliza bought it and the surrounding land and established a 300-acre plantation.  Between 1861 and 1894, the spring was adorned with a marble nymph, grotto, and a stone slab from Alfred Ray’s quarry.  In 1942, the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission acquired the small triangular site to protect the spring from the planned Newell Road extension.  In 1946, the Acorn Gazebo was moved from north of Kennett Street to be on the public land with the spring.  The redesigned grotto area was dedicated in 1955, the same year that Blair’s Silver Spring house was demolished to make way for a post office expansion.