This park was given to Middletown in 1943 by a man named Colonel Clarence S. Wadsworth. The trail was known as Pikes Ravine. Through the years the trail became quite overgrown. During the 1960's a woman named Marian Banks (a Wesleyan University faculty wife)
organized the neighborhood to clean up and cut back the trail. She brought in a specialist to create an intrepreted nature trail. Nearby elementary school often visited the trail to learn about nature. Then in the early 1990's, Marian Banks pasted away and the trail was renamed after her.