Queen Square, named by Brunswick’s colonial-era founders to honor the ruling queens of England, was the most commercialized of the city’s 14 original squares laid out in 1771 under the Oglethorpe Plan as permanent park-like common areas. Although Brunswick’s original charter forbade the sale or commercial use of the city’s squares, a market house was built in the square’s northwest quadrant in 1857, and by the 1870s expanding railroad connections, the forest products business, and activity at the Port of Brunswick brought new wealth and pressure for more business buildings. Structures including a coffee house and greengrocer were approved around the market despite citizen protests against encroachment on public parks, with permits warning that leases could be ended and buildings forfeited if the land was later needed for public use. In 1872 the city found that current leases had been negotiated improperly, and for a time no further permits were issued. In the years that followed, lots in that quadrant were sold and resold, while plans for a federal building and an opera house never materialized, and construction of a new city market stalled in the economic downturn of 1892, leaving unfinished arches covered by a rare snowstorm. Eventually all buildings were removed, the northern half of Queen Square returned to park space, and after 1900 only memorials to inspiring leaders and trees planted by local civic groups were added. After the buildings were cleared, the area became an ideal place to watch passing circus parades, where many in Brunswick may have seen a live elephant for the first and possibly only time. The square also became associated with Columbia Downing Jr., who arrived in Brunswick in 1891 at age 36, built successful enterprises in naval stores, grocery wholesale and provisions, and barrel making, served as a city Alderman, helped organize the First National Bank of Brunswick, and served as a director of the Oglethorpe Hotel Company; in 1926 the Downing Memorial Association placed a permanent marker in Queen Square to honor his contributions to the city.