Customer Reviews

Quabbin, the Accidental Wilderness

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This small paperback offers a surprisingly detailed look at the history behind the creation of the Quabbin Reservior, created in the 1930s in Western Massachusetts to supply Boston with drinking water. It also takes a look at the state of the reservoir today, which has become an oasis of carefully-managed wilderness in the midst of thickly-settled central New England. Despite a subject that could lead a writer to academia-inspired pedantry, it has an almost storybook quality that makes it as pleasurable to read as it is informative. For anyone interested in a WPA-era tale of a massive, government-sponsored public works project, or with an interest in the politics of environmental preservation and manipulation, it's a good investment.

Have you ever wondered why the state of Massachusetts can now support such a high population density? Have our periodic droughts ever piqued your curiosity as to where the water for the city of Boston comes from, when the towns around it must observe water restrictions? What happened to the cholera-laden wells that used to water Massachusetts and keep its population down? This professional report to the people details step-by-step the razing of the pleasant town of Enfield and the creation of a 10-mile-long reservoir in the former Swift River Valley. One accidental effect was the restoration of a wilderness area to which the eagles, long gone from massachusetts, have returned.

Was it too hard to include a map????? Thank God I had already downloaded one from Mass Fish and Game. The History and Explorers Guide is much more complete, has the same information and more, is better written, more pictures....yada yada yada.

Enchanting, illustrated account of the flooding of the Swift River Valley in Eastern Connecticut in 1939, to create the Quabbin Reservoir which serves Boston and surrounding areas. Covers the history of the towns that were removed, the engineering efforts to create a satisfactory water bed and the unintended consequences of the project. Fifty years later, the area around the reservoir had become an almost primeval wilderness, home to the American eagle and other endangered birds, and all the wealth of flora and fauna that had flourished there long before the first settlers arrived.