6: Stewart Park

Stewart Park was once the site of stores and mills, including the Gilford Mercantile and Manufacturing Company which later became the William and Henry Clow Mill, and still later, the Cormier Mill opened by Acide Cormier in 1939.

In Mid-April 1946, Cormier Hosiery Co. bought the former Clow Mill on Union Avenue which it had leased for the past few years. The upper story was leased by Pitman Hosiery Co. 

Old buildings which were removed at the corner of Union Avenue and Main Street were, for the most part, in terrible condition, with only the ground floors occupied. The corner convenience store, the Laconia Fruit Co., best known as “Baldi’s Corner” for its original proprietor, was a local landmark. Much of the land between the river and Union Avenue, along Main Street, had once belonged to Lyman B Walker, a lawyer and large landowner active in the early 1800s. The nearby intersection, Walker Square, is named after him, although most residents are unaware of that designation. As the Urban Renewal Program developed, the site of Stewart Park saw several different proposals for reuse: first, for a new Methodist Church, then for a parking garage, before ultimately being made into a park. In addition to the Clow/Cormier mill, the park includes the sites of the former Laconia Electric Co. (which relocated to Lakeport during Urban Renewal) and a grist mill, along with the King (later Turcott) Block, with several small businesses at ground level and apartments above. Lastly, the Palmer Plumbing Supply Co., serving builders and contractors, occupied a former hosiery mill building next to the Clow/Cormier Mill.

The park was dedicated on November 19, 1973, and named after Paul N Stewart, who had been a member of the Laconia Housing and Redevelopment Authority since 1965, and its chair from May 1973 until his death on September 8, 1973.

A walking path, lighting fixtures, and benches were added, and the park was rededicated in June 2011.

In 2012, a memorial garden was installed in remembrance of victims who died as a result of violence.