We salute the Town of West Springfield on its 250th anniversary with a postcard of bygone days, likely the turn of the twentieth century. The reverse side describes the "primeval forest country" of West Springfield, about an hour from Springfield--and one can see that in a horse and carriage--or even a Model T Ford on rutted, dirt country roads such as this it could have very well taken an hour.
We don't know the name of the route in the picture, and in those days, it might not have had a formal name, but it could have been present-day Bear Hole Road or Great Plains Road. The Massasoit Springs was a small, rustic enterprise, typical of nineteenth-century tourist sites, that provided a spot for lunch, hiking, and perhaps even the restoration of health by drinking the pure spring water. If you weren't interested in the restaurant, perhaps the nearby cage in which a bear was kept could prompt you to make the drive. From around the 1870s to just about the turn of the century, this was enough to bring at least a few tourists any lovely summer day.
In 1906, the area was taken over and turned into the Bearhole Reservoir, and still provides a nice place for hiking. Any bears seen are likely not to be in cages, however.
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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;
Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;
A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels. Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.
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