The Ruins of South Branch Park, Part 7

Come to think of it, this post isn’t so much about the ruins of South Branch Park today as it is about this reservation’s yesteryear.

And just when I thought there was nothing left to add to The Ruins of South Branch Park series, unofficial South Branch Park historian “Bridle Path John” emailed me an old map from The Springfield Republican newspaper that shows not only the old trails there—most of them long gone— but also the old picnic area “mushroom hut” shelters that I remember as a kid.

The mushrooms, small pavilions that accompanied numerous cooking grills, are no longer there. Only a handful of dilapidated ones had survived when I was young. This is what they looked like:

 

Here is the 1938 map of South Branch Park, more than 20 years before the 1960-1962 construction of Veterans Golf Course, which left a lot of open space in the area, but still ate up a lot of the woods there:

 

Bradley Road is running north-south on the left, and Parker Street is north-south on the right. Plumtree road is east-west on the top, and South Branch Parkway is east-west on the bottom. On the right are Bass Pond and Mill Pond, the latter of which feeds the South Branch of the Mill River under Parker Street and into South Branch Park, which basically begins at the iconic waterfall in Sixteen Acres center.

 

You can see all the former bridge crossings where the trails go over the brook, on the waterfall side of the park, including one on the right, just before the stream bends in a big left hook:

 

The crossing on the arrow to the left is the old bridge that once went over the stream near the former Camp Angelina. Below is the foundation and a photo of the old bridge:

 

Here are a few bridge crossings on the Bradley Road side of the reservation:

 

And thanks to historicaerials.com, we can compare aerial photos of the park before and after the golf course was built. Compare the 1958 photo with the 1971 photo below it, where you can see Veterans’ fairways.

 

 

 

In 1971, here is the clearing for the old outdoor Siebert ice skating rink, which is still visible in white before tree and plant growth took over the area in the decades following the 1970 vandalism and subsequent closing of the rink:

 

 

Here is a 1957 aerial of the bridge crossing the meandering stream near Camp Angelina:

 

Not many people know that South Branch Park continued to the other side of Bradley Road in that steep ravine you see near the intersection of Bradley and Plumtree, before the brook goes under Plumtree and empties into Watershops Pond. I always found it a picturesque view downhill there when I looked out my school bus window, but there was an actual bridge crossing and pathways down there, too.

 

Here is a newspaper photo of this bridge (I believe), which was supported by iron girders, in 1932:

 

How did people get to this trail and bridge? Bridle Path John informs me that there was a path from the Redstone Bridge that crosses Bradley (pictured below), a trail that roughly hugged the South Branch of Mill River over to the footbridge (pictured above), which actually serviced a trail that ran along Schneelock Brook off Bradley on the south, (parallel to Burt Road), over to South Branch. (Schneelock Brook feeds the South Branch of the Mill River near the intersection of Bradley and South Branch Parkway.)

The vehicle bridge on Bradley Road was built by the federal Works Progress Administration in 1933, when the South Branch Park (WPA) added 42 acres, greatly expanding the 156-acre reservation, a WPA project, to almost 200 acres.

 

The path that went through the ravine has the arrow pointing to it below. The 1938 map reveals a loop trail down there but no stream crossing—so maybe the bridge in the 1932 photo is another one that was upstream, and the one Bridle Path John remembers was built later. It’s hard to tell.

 

This was back when the South Branch Parkway went through the ravine before the street continues all the way up to Plumtree Road and beyond through East Forest Park:

 

That section was of the Parkway was closed to traffic decades ago and reclaimed by nature:

Below, courtesy of Bridle Path John, are photos of the 1934 WPA construction of the culvert that goes under Plumtree Road curve, taking the South Branch of the Mill River into Watershops pond. The vantage point is from where the stream is about to enter the pond, looking east at the intersection of Plumtree and Bradley.

 

One of the great aspects of getting the old map and aerials is seeing the path that runs behind the old Ursuline Academy (now Pioneer Valley Christian Academy) to Bradley. I had always assumed it was an old access road for the golf course, but it’s a surviving relic of the old South Branch Park. This trail, marked by yellow arrows below (the left arrow where it intersects with Bradley Road), once went all the way across the park and connected with the path that went to the waterfall off Parker Street. The red arrow points to the Evangelical Covenant Church on the corner of Plumtree and Bradley.

 

According to the 1938 map, back then there were trails on BOTH sides of the stream that flows toward Bradley Road. The yellow arrow indicates the present path. The red one points to a now-overgrown trail on the south side of the stream:

The photos I took below at Veterans’ 12th hole in 2009 show the woods that contained some of the trail that still goes to Bradley, but now is just a narrow strip of trees (along with a tree-less gap) because the Pioneer Valley Christian Academy tore down a bunch of woods to put in more athletics fields.

Here is the tiny tree buffer (and gap) between the school and the golf course:

This 2009 photo shows the much thicker woods on the right facing the 12th hole tee:

And here is my photo taken a minute later facing the 12th hole fairway, with the former woods on the left:

 

In the 1950s, the wide east-west trail in the middle of the park, bisecting the main north-south trail and going all the way down to the brook (the brook is at the yellow arrow), is interesting indeed (below). Now obliterated by the golf course, it looks like it actually started in the woods across from Plumtree Road as kind of an extension of Balboa Drive (red arrow), intersected with Plumtree, and continued through the reservation. That was one monster trail! Or was it some kind of service road?

The “relocation” of Memorial Golf Course from East Springfield to South Branch, first proposed in the 1950s, was controversial at the time, but the city was determined to develop an industrial park on Roosevelt Avenue.

 

As I have pointed out before, the incredibly scenic trail that went along the gorge immediately downstream of the falls—and followed the bank of the rapids—has been overgrown and impassable for at least 20 years. It's marked on the map below:

 

If you’re really determined, you can bushwhack your way to the main vista in the gorge, where there is evidence the place being a party spot—not particularly littered, but a few cans and bottles. “Weed“ is carved into a tree—the rapids are in the background: 

 

A stoner hangout? “Blunt” adorns another tree:

 

I would love for that trail to be cleared and restored! I don’t have a chainsaw—which is what it would take to clean up those woods—but I would certainly volunteer for a day of trail work. Years ago there were volunteer cleanup and trail maintenance days at the park, but not recently. Here is one from 1964:

 

South Branch Park isn’t under Springfield Parks and Recreation jurisdiction. The park is on its own, without a grassroots “friends” group to advocate for it or maintain trails, so there are several tree-falls blocking the main trail.

 

The original trail that hugged the gorge wound its way around the brook, which takes the 90-degree turn south. When I was a kid, at this bend my friends and I discovered a freshwater spring. It was magical—crystal clear water bubbling up from the ground. I had never seen anything like it. On a dare I drank from it because we had heard spring water was safe. It was delicious, and I didn’t get diarrhea!

 

In recent years I looked for the spring and I finally stumbled upon it after many hikes. It’s not pristine like it was in the early 1970s—it’s muddy and totally lacks the bubbling action it had back then. Hell, a freshwater spring is really nothing more than groundwater coming to the surface, but there it is, emerging at the bottom of the photo and flowing (barely) toward the brook. It’s looking pretty stagnant, but at least I found it:

 

I can’t fully explain my obsession with South Branch Park, and neither can Bridle Path John—he has a hard time elucidating to others the reason for his fascination with the place. It undoubtedly has roots in our fantastic childhood memories of these woods—especially for John, who hiked and fished in them pre-golf course—and the fact that we had a beautiful waterfall and roaring rapids right in our own neighborhood. Hence, all the minutiae I have been providing on this reservation in seven blog installments.

 

So will there eventually be The Ruins of South Branch Park, Part 8? It depends. Maybe if the old gorge trail is restored! Or maybe if I could find some quality old photos of the park, especially its formation. Back then, the WPA was very thorough about documenting its work projects with photos, and I keep getting the nagging feeling that a treasure trove of South Branch pictures from the 1930s exists somewhere—probably in a file cabinet. And certainly there must be photos of the construction of Veterans Golf Course!

 

If anyone knows the possible whereabouts of this Holy Grail of photographic history, email me at hellsacres@gmail.com.

Read all the blog posts on The Ruins of South Branch Park:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 (scroll down)

Part 4

Part 5 (scroll down)

Part 6