Quabbin Clippings Collection

Background

The evacuation of four towns in the Swift River Valley during the 1920s and 1930s was a traumatic event in the history of western Massachusetts. To meet the growing needs for potable water in the Boston metropolitan region, the state legislature ordered that the relatively sparsely populated towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott, as well as portions of other adjoining towns such as New Salem, were to be removed to make way for the construction of a massive reservoir. Over the course of almost two decades, the towns' residents were systematically relocated, the houses moved or razed, and the bed of the future reservoir was stripped of trees and brush. The last remaining residents of the region were removed in 1938 and the four primary towns were officially disincorporated as the dam was completed and the waters began to rise.