Watchung Reservation, Union County’s largest nature reserve, spans one thousand nine hundred forty-five acres in the Blue Brook valley between the First and Second Watchung Mountains. Its forested landscape preserves striking geology, including Jurassic red beds and basalt, as well as dinosaur fossils found by Paul E. Olsen in the 1970s. The area also holds evidence of long Lenape use and later European resource extraction. Feltville, the “Deserted Village,” grew from David Felt’s printing community in 1845, later became the resort Glenside Park, and also preserves rare Roberto de la Selva murals. Since becoming part of the county park system after 1921, the reservation has combined recreation, historic sites, and habitat conservation.

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Mountainside, New Jersey · USA