Qualla: Gypsy Hill Park https://qualla.com/gypsy-hill-park en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:07 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/c/gypsy-hill-park-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Gypsy Hill Park https://qualla.com/gypsy-hill-park Gypsy Hill Park: Introduction https://qualla.com/gypsy-hill-park/ Photo credit Ned Hartley, CC BY-SA 4.0. Every Monday night from May through August, the Stonewall Brigade Band plays at the bandstand in Gypsy Hill Park. The band traces its lineage to the mid-1850s - it was active during the Civil War as the 5th Regiment Band, and it once performed for President Ulysses S. Grant during his visit to Staunton. It has been performing somewhere in this town, more or less continuously, for over 170 years. That is a fact most American cities cannot match. Stand on the lawn at 8 p.m. on a summer Monday and you are listening to one of the oldest community bands in the country play in a park that started life as the city's water supply.

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Image: Ned Hartley | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/c/gypsy-hill-park-wp/dnzc-gypsy-hill-park-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Gypsy Hill Park: From Water Source to Park https://qualla.com/gypsy-hill-park/ Photo credit Ned Hartley, CC BY-SA 4.0. The land that became Gypsy Hill Park began as Staunton's drinking water. In the mid-1800s, springs beneath the hill fed a pumping plant that supplied the growing city. To protect the watershed, Staunton bought 30 acres by 1876 and another 60 acres by 1890. Captain William P. Tams...

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Image: Ned Hartley | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/c/gypsy-hill-park-wp/dnzc-gypsy-hill-park-from-water-source-to-park.mp3 0:06 2 full Gypsy Hill Park: Segregation in the Park https://qualla.com/gypsy-hill-park/ Photo credit Ned Hartley, CC BY-SA 4.0. For decades, Gypsy Hill Park was a segregated space. Black residents of Staunton were barred from entering on most days; the park was open to them just one day a year. Rita Wilson, who later served sixteen years on the Staunton City Council, recalled growing up under this restric...

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Image: Ned Hartley | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/c/gypsy-hill-park-wp/dnzc-gypsy-hill-park-segregation-in-the-park.mp3 0:06 3 full Gypsy Hill Park: Music, Trains, and Statler Brothers https://qualla.com/gypsy-hill-park/ Photo credit Ned Hartley, CC BY-SA 4.0. Gypsy Hill Park is one of those rare municipal parks that programs free entertainment most nights of summer week. Mondays belong to the Stonewall Brigade Band; Tuesdays to Praise in the Park; Wednesdays to bluegrass; Thursdays to jazz. Every other Friday, a family-friendly movie ...

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Image: Ned Hartley | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/c/gypsy-hill-park-wp/dnzc-gypsy-hill-park-music-trains-and-statler-brothers.mp3 0:06 4 full Gypsy Hill Park: What Grandma Moses Saw https://qualla.com/gypsy-hill-park/ Photo credit Ned Hartley, CC BY-SA 4.0. Anna Mary Robertson Moses - Grandma Moses, the self-taught folk painter who didn't take up painting seriously until her seventies - lived in Augusta County for eighteen years before her national fame, and she painted Gypsy Hill Park. Her composition catches the park's mix of smal...

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Image: Ned Hartley | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/c/gypsy-hill-park-wp/dnzc-gypsy-hill-park-what-grandma-moses-saw.mp3 0:06 5 full