Somewhere beneath the still surface of a Massachusetts reservoir, the foundations of four towns sit in permanent silence. Stone walls, cellar holes, and paved roads leading nowhere are all that remain of communities that once had churches, schools, summer camps, and general stores. There was no earthquake here. No natural disaster. The flooding was deliberate.
The towns of Enfield, Greenwich, Dana, and Prescott in the Swift River Valley of Massachusetts were flooded to build the Quabbin Reservoir, which now serves as Boston’s primary water supply. It’s one of the most consequential and quietly heartbreaking stories in American civic history, and most people driving past it on Route 9 have no idea what lies beneath.
Boston Was Running Out of Water
As the population of Boston began increasing in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Massachusetts started constructing a series of drinking reservoirs, moving further and further west into the state. By 1927, the state passed the Swift River Act, allowing the government to take land in the Swift River Valley.
The topography of the Swift River Valley was such that a couple of well-placed dams at the southern end could turn the whole region, an area of roughly 40 square miles, into a gigantic bowl capable of holding 412 billion gallons of water…