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This is Birchbank Road in Indian Well State Park in Shelton. Many people drive over the bridge and barely notice it. It's located just after the parking area designated for the Paugussett Trail and for the waterfalls that give the park its name. The photo above was taken from the very beginning of the Paugussett Trail, where I was trying to match up blue paint for some reblazing at Shelton Lakes this spring.
I meant to walk up to the falls, but found the bridge more interesting. This bridge, as well as other stone work at the park, was a WPA project, the 1930's version of "stimulus spending." The Paugussett Trail was also created during the Great Depression by using CCC workers.
Indian Hole Brook is shallow, even today after all the rain we had a few days ago, so it's possible to walk underneath and admire the effort it must have taken to build this bridge by hand.
Over the past 75 years or so, stalactites have formed. Some are six inches long. Bridge stalactite are made of gypsum, and form much more rapidly than cave stalactites, which are made of limestone.
1 comment:
I usually just drive over the bridge & don't think about the effort it took to build it. I parked in trailhead parking lot by The Maples today and walked up the road. When you stop and look at it for a bit you start to appreciate the tremendous amount of effort and craftsmanship that went into building the bridge and the retaining walls along Indian Well Road in the Depression. It was an impressive feat that put people back to work & held up well over the decades. We should do more of these types of improvements around America today.
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