Video clip of the water, wildlife, and garbage at Mill River (ca. 1991)
Description:
Video clip of the water, wildlife, and garbage at Mill River in 1991. The lake is closed off. The first half of the video is the recorders trying to get video of the lake behind the yellow caution tape that says, "Fire Line Do Not Cross," and orange gates that say, "Closed." The members of the recording crew are talking with a news reported on the video but the conversation is inaudible. There are close-up videos of the garbage and medical waste in the lake. The video is about 20 minutes long. The tape is listed as "Lake Massasoit Medical Waste I #16" and comes from a series of 28 Betacam video tapes that is believed to be raw video that may have been used in the documentary "The Lost River: The story of the Mill River". There are tapes 14 and 15 but there is no video or audio on the tapes, therefore the next tape after #13 is going to be #16. In 1809, Lake Massasoit was formed by the army by damming the Mill River. The purpose of the dam was to ensure a constant flow of water downstream for the Springfield Armory “Watershops.” The Springfield Armory was America’s first and last National Armory, formed in 1777 and continuing production up until 1968. The formerly named Watershops Pond has 7 miles of shoreline and covers 186 acres. From 1892-1900, the buildings of Springfield College began to come about, and the name was changed to Lake Massasoit by Springfield College officials. The name came from a local hotel, the Massasoit House, owned by Marvin Chapin, a generous benefactor of the college. In 1920, the college purchased a large area of land on the upper end of the pond, and called it the “Freshman Camp.” Since the college was formed, students, faculty and visitors have used the Pond for sailing, swimming, ice skating and fishing. However, the lake was officially closed for swimming in 1984 when the lake was said to be unhealthy.
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