Head Out On the (Colonial) Highway

From King Nutmeg:

Get your horse and cart runnin', head out on the Colonial Highway!

What's that you say? You have not a horse nor a cart? Well, then put on your best hobnail boots and walk alongside. We're going over the mountain! We'll gather nutmeg and pippins to accompany our potted meat and pepper cake. What a feast we shall have when we dost arrive in Hartford!

Hmm. Methinks this path has been overtaken by Satan! Or perhaps the glawackus has frightened away those who maintain the highway. Oh bugger!

Shall we gather our scramasaxes and carve a path? No, well what then?

What ho! Dost I spy an inn? There shall be much jollification this evening!

...Sorry, lost my mind there for a minute.

I stayed at the Avon Old Farms Hotel in Avon, Connecticut, recently. A friend told me about a sign for an old pathway behind the hotel. So I found it. What I couldn't find was any information about this "Colonial highway." I find it odd that a hotel would erect a sign for the sole purpose of driving history buffs like me absolutely crazy. But that's what these fine folks did.

Is this a remnant of a private turnpike, like many others built in Colonial New England to allow greater ease of movement throughout the territory? Perhaps. These turnpikes charged tolls to pass through, but the private companies that operated them weren't necessarily raking it in.

"The financial success of individual Connecticut turnpikes varied greatly, depending on the volume of traffic and the availability of nearby public roads that travelers could use to avoid a particular turnpike or toll gate," per the article linked above. "Only 20 of the 100 operating turnpikes in Connecticut during the 19th century showed profits ranging from 3-10% for 10 years or longer....Many individual turnpike corporations found themselves unable to maintain their routes as required by their charters due to low revenues, so their roadways were returned to public ownership and toll-free travel."

Anyway, it's a cool little bit of hidden history.

Here's the inspiration for the headline on this post:

Anniversary Post #2: My Favorites from 2011

From Dave Brigham:

Welcome to the second installment of my look back at the past seven years of this blog. Launched on March 1, 2010, The Backside of America has published more than 400 posts covering three dozen states, written by more than a dozen authors/photographers.

The first installment in my look-back, "Anniversary Post #1: My Favorites from 2010," covered the first 10 months of the blog. This post will cover the entirety of 2011. Future posts will deal with the years 2012-2016, and with some of the challenges of running this site, as well as exciting changes coming to The Backside of America.

I need to mention that Joe Viger has contributed some amazing photos and fantastic write-ups over the years, but I'll be linking to very few of them in this series. Why? Because Joe -- an amazing photographer who has served as a mentor of sorts to me in that regard, and a great friend I've known for nearly 30 years -- has changed the security settings on his Flickr account so that many of his photos that have run on this blog show up as broken links now. I will instead direct you to his wonderful online portfolio.

Without further ado, here are the highlights, as I see them, from 2011, the first full year of the blog.

I brought my then three-and-a-half-year-old daughter with me to take pictures of a long-abandoned section of Route 128 in Milton, Mass. She danced happily along the moss-covered roadway while I snapped away for my January 24, 2011, post, "End of the Road."

The blog has featured other abandoned roadways, as well as some that were built but never put into use. Search the site....

On January 30, 2011, we published the inaugural post by Kristen Smith, a great photographer who'd been recruited by Joe Viger, one of The Backside's original contributors. "Demolition -- Par for the Course" chronicled the demise of a miniature golf course in New Hampshire.

I was extremely excited by David Burke's February 20, 2011, post, "Lose, Place or Show." This marked the first and, to date, only time the blog has run something about an old horse track. Surely there must be other abandoned tracks like this. Maybe you or someone you know would like to take pictures of them....

I would absolutely love to get inside the former O'Hara Waltham Dial Company in -- where else? -- Waltham, Mass.

On February 27, 2011, I posted some photos and background about this building just over the line from Newton's town dump -- see "UPDATE: What a Dump." I returned a second time for a look at the backside of this backside building. I'll probably post that link in a future installment.

In her March 14, 2011, post "Lost Bomber," Kristen Smith showed readers a World War II-era crash site of a B18 bomber in the woods of New Hampshire. I was absolutely floored by her photos, as well as by the idea that such a site existed.

On March 24, 2011, the blog published the first post by Michael Cevoli. Titled "Working In a Coal Mine," the post featured gorgeous shots from Pennsylvania coal country. I had hoped we might feature a lot more of Cevoli's work, but I believe we only published one or two other of his posts. You can see his work at his web site.

"Mysterious. Odd. Mournful. Ramshackle. Puzzling. Even whimsical. Yeah, I’m talking about those weird little shacks on the side of the road that make you go 'hmmmm.'" That's how Kristen Smith introduced her beautiful shots of abandoned cabins in Vermont, New Hampshire and Montana, in her June 10, 2011, post "Roadside Attractions?"

Discovering new places to explore is great, but I find that when the stories we post here on the blog have a personal angle, I like them best. Mick Melvin went back to his adopted hometown in New Jersey and took photos and wrote about childhood memories in the June 23, 2011, post, "The Gut." Spoiler alert: "As it turns out, the families we met in the Gut will be friends of ours for life," Mick writes.

Folks like those of us here at the Backside of America who enjoy taking pictures of the dilapidated, abandoned and forgotten parts of this country sometimes get accused of exploiting the poor and downtrodden and trafficking in "ruin porn." I maintain that we are documenting the past and, sometimes, providing a forum for reminiscence to those who recall certain places and times.

Still, sometimes I make assumptions about places that I know nothing about.

The Reef was a bar in Waltham, Mass., that closed down several years ago, and has since been replaced by an apartment building. I never went to The Reef, and when I wrote about it in my August 25, 2011, post, "Goodbye Reef, So Long Bill," I was somewhat dismissive, writing, "I picture lots of skinny, old guys wearing tank tops and smoking in and around the door. I hear old country music leaking out the grimy windows. I smell pickled eggs on the bar."

This post received numerous comments -- a rarity for the blog -- from former customers who missed the bar, but also mourned the former owner, Bill. "It might have looked scarey (sic)," one person wrote, "but there where a lot of awesome people who hung out inside."

I learned not to judge a book by its deteriorating cover from those comments.

Mick Melvin made personal connections with his return to a place he once lived. I, too, have profiled a few places in my hometown of Simsbury, Connecticut. The most personal was the ruins of a home that I'd walked through as a teenager, not long after it had been abandoned with every personal possession intact.

The house was torn down decades ago, but I was amazed to see upon my return that there was plenty left behind in the mud. As I wrote in my September 20, 2011, post, "In Search of President Little," "I had no reason to expect that anything would be on the site. I'm not a spiritual guy whatsoever, but I feel like something drew me here to discover the remnants of a forgotten place."

Finally, on November 20, 2011, I published the second of a three-part series about long-abandoned waterworks in and around Newton, Mass., where I live. "History Flows On, Part II" covered the old structures of Cutler Park, specifically the section in the town of Needham, just east of Route 128, and the graffiti-covered tunnel running under the commuter train tracks.

Make sure to check back for the third part, covering all of 2012. Highlights will include photos of the remains of an old boathouse on the Charles River in Waltham; a spooky old barn in New Hartford, Conn.; and the remnants of a World War I-era rifle range in Concord, Mass.

Old Road

From lostlosangeles:

(Abandoned section of old I-95 in Newburyport, Mass.)

For shots of another abandoned highway section in Massachusetts, see January 24, 2011, "End of the Road."

Dis-Connector

From lostlosangeles:



This is a barricade signifying one end of the unfinished I-89 southern connector in Burlington, Vermont. Since its initial planning stage in 1965, the project has experienced one delay after another with constant route and design changes. Many local residents expressed concern that the neighborhood would be destroyed. There have even been issues with nearby toxic conditions. After almost 40 years, the project remains incomplete with this connector to nowhere as its symbol. This debacle has even inspired an installation, The World's Tallest Filing Cabinet, symbolizing all of the wasted time and paperwork...

(For similar posts, see March 7, 2011, "Graffiti Highway" and June 30, 2011, "Ghost Highway," both about the same tangle of never-used highway connectors outside Hartford, CT.)

Graffiti Highway

From Mick Melvin:

My niece and nephew told me about an abandoned highway near Route 84 going through West Hartford, CT. Of course, I thought of the photo opportunities right away.



The “highway” is actually a series of never-used on and off ramps near Route 84. They told me how to get to it and I made the trek on my mountain bike, with camera backpack in tow. I rode along the ramps and the overpasses for many hours on a beautiful spring day. (We ran a short piece with one photo about these ramps in June 2010, called "Ghost Highway" -- ed.)

There are six ramps that run underneath the overpasses and over the highway. Four of the ramps lead to the overpasses that go above Route 84 near Exit 39A leading to and from Route 9. The other two ramps were to be off ramps on the northern side of the highway.

I enjoyed the quiet while pedaling along the abandoned ramps. It's really quiet until you are practically over the highway; then you can hear the roar of the traffic below. It was really eerie being there all alone, but it was a good ride for an old fella like me.



Besides the overgrown vegetation on my journey, there was graffiti of all sorts to see along the way. I spent a good amount of time viewing the various writings and artwork on the walls, railings, and mostly the pavement.



I also enjoyed the view of Route 84 while on the empty overpasses. While standing and enjoying the view, I couldn't help but think that the location could be a great park or fitness trail. Hopefully someday the abandoned highway will be utilized and be removed from backside status.

End of the Road

From Dave Brigham:



Ever since discovering this abandoned section of old Route 128 in the Blue Hills Reservation in Milton, MA, during a mountain bike trek several years ago, I've wanted to get back and take some pictures. OK, that's an exaggeration. I have long wanted to get back to the site. But only since starting this blog last March have I wanted to take pictures. I finally made the half-hour trip there with my daughter this past fall.

I didn't do enough mapping homework in advance, and ended up having to carry my 3-year-old daughter for a good distance through the woods to find the old road. Once we found it, however, she was more than happy to jump out of my arms and walk along, mugging for the camera. From what I've learned online, state road crews have used the old highway for striping practice, evidence of which can be seen here.



This is the end. Or the beginning. Take your choice.

Ghost Highway

From David Burke:

It must have seemed like a great idea at the time: constructing several stretches of highway, connectors and overpasses between Interstate 84 and Routes 9 and 72 in West Hartford and New Britain, CT. However, after several million dollars were spent, many of these roads have remained closed since their completion some 30 years ago. Eerie, quiet and strangely serene, they will probably still be there for another 30 years...ready for another generation of Backside fans to enjoy!