Branch Brook Park in Newark, extending into Belleville, became the first county park in the United States when Essex County created it in 1895. Planned in the nineteenth century and shaped into its naturalistic meadows and woodland by the Olmsted Brothers after 1900, it grew from 60 acres into one of the nation’s larger urban parks. Its best-known feature is the nation’s largest collection of cherry blossom trees, with more than 5,000 trees in over eighteen varieties celebrated each April. The park also preserves notable bridges, buildings, and sculptures, and has remained a community landmark through later additions, restoration, and recreation.