The four-acre square in the centre of downtown, deeded to the city in 1850 by founder Edmund Sylvester and laid out as a public park almost immediately. The 1893 Old Capitol building on the east side gives the square its character — a heavy stone Romanesque pile that briefly housed the state legislature before the current Capitol was built.
A central bandstand hosts free summer concerts on Wednesday evenings. The benches and lawns fill at lunchtime with state employees from the surrounding office buildings.