260-foot Drop in 18 Miles
During the Industrial Revolution, the Chicopee River became a particularly sought-after destination for hydropower, largely because it drops 260 feet during its 18 mile course to the Connecticut River. By comparison, the meandering Connecticut River drops just 50 feet from Chicopee to Old Saybrook, Connecticut, where it empties into the Long Island Sound. For this reason, numerous mills were built along the Chicopee River; today, many of them can be found in various states of repurposing, with a particularly famous mill in Springfield Indian Orchard serving as artists' space.
Due in part to its precipitous drop, as of 2011, there are six hydropower dams on the Chicopee River. The average flow of the Chicopee River is 900 cubic feet per second, or about 581,644,800 gallons per day.
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Famous quotes containing the words drop and/or miles:
“Chaucer is fresh and modern still, and no dust settles on his true passages. It lightens along the line, and we are reminded that flowers have bloomed, and birds sung, and hearts beaten in England. Before the earnest gaze of the reader, the rust and moss of time gradually drop off, and the original green life is revealed. He was a homely and domestic man, and did breathe quite as modern men do.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All the morning we had heard the sea roar on the eastern shore, which was several miles distant.... It was a very inspiriting sound to walk by, filling the whole air, that of the sea dashing against the land, heard several miles inland. Instead of having a dog to growl before your door, to have an Atlantic Ocean to growl for a whole Cape!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)