Cove Island Park is an 83-acre public park and beach on Stamford’s Cove peninsula and nearby Cove Island along Long Island Sound, valued for both recreation and wildlife habitat. Its landscape includes estuary, marshes, forest, grassland, fields, and Stamford’s last undeveloped sand dune. The island was cut off from the mainland in the late 1700s after a flour watermill was expanded. In the 1800s and early 1900s, the site was industrial, tied to Henry J. Sanford and the Stamford Manufacturing Co., whose factory burned in 1919. Later converted to parkland, it now offers trails, beaches, bird and butterfly habitat, memorial and educational uses, and has faced flooding from Hurricane Sandy.

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