VILLAGE VIBE
It's easy to linger in tiny Turners Falls.
Check out the scene at explorenewengland.com
Perhaps the best way to explain -- and visit --
Turners Falls is chronologically. After you turn from Route 2
and head over the bridge, ancient layered banks of the Connecticut
come into view. Some 200 million years ago, this was the muddy
bottom of a rift in the supercontinent Pangea. Dinosaurs
roamed, and their tracks, along with raindrops, fish imprints, and
worm burrows were preserved as the mud sank and other material piled
on top. Unless you know what to look for, it can be hard to
spot a dinosaur print at the riverbank, but stop in at the Great
Falls Discovery Center at the entrance to the
village.
The state-owned center, which is partnered
with the Sivio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge, has
enormous amounts of information about the Connecticut
watershed. Better yet, it has people such as Winters, who are
happy to show off the geological wonders scattered throughout the
village and museum.
Once you
view to fossilized prints, stand at the foot of the bridge and
look at the dam that sits atop a waterfall. The
area, known as Peskeompsskut, or "place of the split rock," was one
of the oldest continuously settled areas in North America and served as
a meeting and trading place for Native American tribes
all over New England. In 1676, Captain William Turner,
|
After heading over the bridge, ancient
layered banks of the Connecticut come into view.
|
If you go ...
How to get
there
Turners Falls is about 90 miles from
Boston. Take Route 2 west until stoplight in Gill.
Turn left and go over bridge.
Where to
eat
Avenue A Cafe
111
Avenue A
413-834-1207
avenueacafe.com
Wonderful
breakfast sandwiches, lunch, and locally roasted
coffee.
Monday-Thursday 6 a.m.-5 p.m., till
8 Friday, Saturday 7-8, Sunday 8-3.
|
|
for
whom the village is named, led a group
of 150 men and boys who invaded the unguarded
village and killed hundreds of women, children, and elders by
shooting them or forcing them into the river where they
drowned, according to Linda Hickman, who has written a walking tour
of downtown. Turner was killed retreating. In 2004, selectmen in Montague held
a reconciliation, acknowledging the massacre and signaling what
they hope will be better relations with Native |
Americans. Now,
turn around and look down Avenue A -- the village's wide main
road -- and imagine what industrialist Colonel Alvah Crocker
envisioned in the 1860s: another Holyoke or Lowell filled
with humming mills and thousands of workers. By the
early 1900s, cotton, cutlery, and
paper mills lined a canal off the river that bypassed the
powerful falls. The village bustled with a grand hotel
and the Colle Opera House, which seated 1,000. But by
the 1940's like so many other New England mill towns, the
factories began closing. Turners falls was preserved,
somewhat raggedly in time.
Today, it takes only about 10 minutes to walk
the planned village, from First to Seventh streets. The
downtown has been designated a National Historic District for
its 19th century architecture, and you'll find stories about
the village from the people you meet. In the past five
years, the Crocker Bank Building, the opera house, and a
historic row house were renovated through public and private
efforts totaling close to $10 million, according to Frank
Abbondanzio, Montague town administrator.
The
Hallmark Museum of Contemporary Photography, showcasing professional photographs
and the personal collection of founder George J. Rosa III, is on
the first floor of the opera house. The museum,
which opened last year, is expanding into the
Crocker building and that new addition should be
open early next year. Next door, check out the
Shea Theater, the cultural nerve center of the village, and dance are performed
and classes taught.
| |
