he fair offered Guilford a chance to celebrate its agricultural heritage and signaled the beginning of the green as town playground.

  Activities included band concerts and games of football and tennis. In winter part of the green was flooded for skating. The space also took on a new guise as memorial ground with the addition of commemorative trees and monuments, beginning with the pink granite Civil War statue put in place in 1877.

	Civil War Monument Dedication, Guilford Green, black-and-white photograph, circa 1915. Courtesy of the Guilford Free Library, Guilford, Connecticut.

  The next step in the Guilford Green's beautification came following the Civil War, when a group of Guilford women formed the United Workers for Public Improvement. Around this time these industrious ladies raised funds for street lights and tree planting.