In 1914 the Waterbury Green was covered by canopy formed by dozens of majestic elm trees. The elm trees, synonymous with greens all across New England, were wiped out by Dutch elm disease in the middle of the 20th Century. The disease is caused by a virus thought to have originated in Asia and is spread by the elm bark beetle. The disease was first reported in the United States in 1928, when the beetles arrived in a shipment of logs from Holland. The disease spread slowly from New England westward and southward, almost completely destroying the famous elms in downtown Waterbury, and in the ‘Elm City’ of New Haven.