Fellsmere Lantern Walk Planned For Saturday In Malden

MALDEN, MA — Community members will have a chance to help light up the Fellsmere Park area in Malden on Saturday night with a fifth annual Lantern Walk event by the Friends of Fellsmere Heights organization.

The event is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 27 from 5:30 p.m. to dusk. It will take place at Fellsmere Park.

Attendees can come early for a lantern-making workshop between 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Alternatively, they can buy their own lantern or bring one from a past year. Lantern sales begin at 7 p.m. and supplies are limited. Organizers are advising that attendees wear a mask.

"Bring a chair, picnic blanket, make new friends and reconnect with old ones, build community, create a better future," organizers said in an event announcement.

A rain date is set for Sunday, Aug. 28.

Fellsmere Park traces its history back over 100 years to when Boston Rubber Shoe Company owner Elisha Converse dammed former swampland to create what is now Fellsmere Pond as a fire protection reservoir for nearby factories, according to Malden city documents.

Converse, who also served as Malden’s first mayor, donated land that would become the park. The famed Frederick Law Olmstead, Sr. and his architecture firm then designed the Fellsmere Park itself.

The city of Malden has since moved forward with a master planning process to chart a series of planned improvements at the park.

The upcoming lantern walk will serve to celebrate both Converse’s 200th birthday and the mission of “protecting open space for future generations,” as noted in the event announcement.