USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Hampden county, 1636-1936, Volume II > Part 4
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At this time the city suffered a housing shortage, always a sign of increased prosperity and growth. The assessed valuation of real property reached the staggering figure of something over $200,- 000,000. The population was about 130,000, over four times that of fifty years before. The Westinghouse radio station WBZ, later WBZA, went on the air for the first time as radio developed with incredible rapidity and this station was one of the early ones in America. Some years later another Springfield radio station, WMAS, began to broadcast from the new Stonehaven Hotel on Chestnut Street. The North End Bridge was demolished by fire in 1923, to be replaced by a new and beautiful structure a few years later. An index of manufacturing activity in Springfield in the year 1924 may be seen when Springfield manufactures were valued at $106,000,000.
In 1922 Springfield Airport was developed from Fisk Park, a baseball and athletic field owned by the Fisk Rubber Company. This field has been greatly enlarged and prepared for airport use by the four Tait brothers. There are now located at the field a modern hangar, an aircraft factory, and an administration building with radio connections. The field itself is lighted with the most approved type of boundary lights, flood lights and aircraft beacons. Airplane flights over the city can be arranged for at any time.
The opening of the Bowles Airport in Agawam in 1930 indicated that Springfield was already air-minded in a serious way. The enthusi- asm in the city was great in 1931, when Lowell Bayles, speed flyer, put Springfield on the air racing map by winning the Thompson trophy speed dashes in a locally built Gee Bee, at the national air
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races, and a year later Major Jimmy Doolittle, of national air race fame, shattered the world's speed record for land planes in a Spring- field Gee Bee. Bayles later crashed to death in an attempt to capture the world's record for speed planes. Another unfortunate air death occurred a few years later when Zantford D. Granville, Springfield builder of speed planes, was killed in an air crash. Maude Tait Moriarity has also held several women's air records for Springfield.
In 1924 came the bitter fight in the city between the jitneys and the trolley systems for transportation control. There was much litiga- tion and dispute, but the trolley company was more powerful and slowly forced the jitneys out. The jitneys, in fighting back, reduced their fares by half, and finally ran with no fares at all, allowing the passengers to contribute what they would for their ride. The result of the fight was the banning of the jitneys from the Springfield streets.
An extraordinary increase in the assessed property valuation fig- ures may be seen in 1926, when in that year the valuation quoted was $303,350,000, or about a $100,000,000 rise in only eight years. This one comparison is perhaps the best illustration of how Springfield grew with almost marvelous rapidity, spreading out as fast as roads could be paved and sidewalks laid. The Forest Park section, in par- ticular, underwent great development, and homes went up one after another past the Diamond Match factory on Sumner Avenue and clear out to Allen Street, with small forests and areas of brush being cleared away to make room for new developments.
The old post-office building at Main and Worthington, where the postal service for many years was conducted, along with a customs house service, was finally torn down in 1933 and replaced by a beauti- ful and modern building on Dwight Street near the railroad station. The new post-office is one of the finest of its kind both in beauty and utility. The ordinary postal business is conducted on the first floor, and the upper floors are occupied by the offices of various govern- mental departments.
A new administration had come in 1933 with the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt as President, and almost on the heels of this change in national government came the closing of the banks through- out the Nation for a ten-day period. This was the climax of the financial depression which started with the stock market crash of 1929. The Springfield banks closed like the rest, and in the process
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the Western Massachusetts Bank and Trust Company failed to reopen. The NRA began, and many of the unemployed found work on the various alphabetical projects sponsored by the government, notably the CWA, ERA, PWA and WPA, which came to the city in succession.
Labor agitation is also distinctive of this period. The United Labor Party was formed, but failed to get the Central Labor Union endorsement. A strike of large proportions came to the city when the newspapers went through a six months printers' strike, with some violence and a great deal of agitation. A separate newspaper was formed for a time by the striking contingent, but this proved unsuc- cessful and was dropped, and the publishers of the Springfield news- papers finally gained victory, although at great expense.
For many years there was agitation in Hampden County over building a new and modern bridge across the Connecticut River, in keeping with the times and the demands of automobile traffic. The old toll bridge, while an historical landmark with a fine background of tradition, did not enhance the appearance of this section, and at various times fear was expressed that the wooden bridge was unsafe. This fear was a force in the creation of the beautiful and monumental bridge to come. It was argued, further, that a new bridge with a wide lane and a sweeping approach was necessary so that traffic could move at a proper speed, which was prohibited by the narrow width of the old bridge.
As a culmination of this constant pressure, the county commis- sioners finally sanctioned the construction of a new bridge and bids were submitted in March of 1920. Fay, Spofford & Thorndike were the supervising engineers, while H. P. Converse & Company were designated as contractors. This was not accomplished without opposi- tion. The cost of the bridge was estimated to be somewhat over $6,000,000, of which the city of Springfield was to pay about half and the other cities and towns in the county the balance. Despite the fact that Springfield's share of the cost was generous, there was marked opposition, particularly from Westfield and Holyoke. The officials of those cities felt that while their communities were benefited by the bridge at the north end of the city, they would receive little direct benefit from the proposed new bridge. In view of this fact, they pro- tested violently at the idea of contributing sizeable sums of money
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toward a project that seemingly benefited directly only the city of Springfield and the town of West Springfield.
Another dispute arose, this time in Springfield alone, concerning the point on the Springfield river front from which the new bridge would start. One group advocated that it start at Bridge Street, on the site of the old toll bridge; another recommended that it begin at Vernon Street; and still another was in favor of its running directly into Court Square. The disadvantages of building on the old site became obvious when it was pointed out that great delay would be encountered before the old toll bridge would be torn down and the great sandstone piles dug up from the bed of the river to make way for the new.
The locating of the new bridge at the river front in back of Court Square had its obvious disadvantages, too. Had it been built there, the approach would have reached the grade of Springfield Street somewhere in the vicinity of the Old First Church, and would have encroached on property that would have been difficult to purchase or to take legally. Moreover, the architectural effect of the entire municipal group would have been seriously impaired.
The Springfield City Council favored the "Vernon Street Plan" and the Chamber of Commerce supported it also, while a petition signed by 17,000 inhabitants of the county favoring the location was presented to the special bridge commission. With this weight of pub- lic opinion behind them, the Vernon Street adherents saw their pro- posal go through.
There were other points of dispute. The plan of the new bridge called for a sixty-foot width, but a storm of protest arose from the people of the county and the width was increased to eighty feet. A plan was also proposed to beautify the river front by moving the tracks of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad across the river, running them through West Springfield and Agawam, so the main river front of the city would be free of tracks and trains. Another argument in favor of this proposal was that if the tracks were allowed to remain, an expensive viaduct would have to be built over them before the actual bridge building itself could start. The plan failed dismally when it was shown that the cost of diverting tracks to the opposite side of the river would be far greater than the cost of a viaduct, and the cost in delay, inconvenience, rerouting and
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other railroad difficulties, although difficult to measure in dollars and cents, would be felt just as keenly.
Work was finally started after these preliminary problems had been solved. The bridge was to be the reinforced concrete arch rib type of five sweeping arches and six piers. This design in itself was an unusual one, giving the bridge a certain freedom and openness which makes for grace and symmetry with no loss of strength or utility.
In exploring the bed of the river, engineers found that there was no solid rock, but instead hard layers of sand and clay. Wooden piles were driven down into these hard layers and on top of them the bridge piers and abutments were erected. There was some fear expressed that the wooden piles would in a short time decay and fall apart, but technical experts explained that so long as the wooden piles of the foundation were buried below the bed of the river, they could not decay and would be as durable as concrete itself. The piers were faced with granite from below the low water line to above the high water line to protect them from ice or floating débris.
There were several requirements that the engineers had to meet before they finished. Not the least of these were those presented by the War Department of the United States. Since the Connecticut River was classified as a navigable stream by the government, it was necessary to provide a certain clearance beneath the bridge so that vessels could pass, if necessary. There was a requirement also that fixed the highest point of the span about one-third of the distance. across the stream, making for an elevation of about thirty feet above the Springfield streets. Another regulation, common to all bridges, no matter what size, was the "load" regulation. The Memorial Bridge had to be sturdily built so that it would carry twenty-ton trucks, a continuous line of trolley cars on each of the two street railway tracks, and also the heaviest mobile ordnance vehicles of the United States War Department.
The contractors, after the way was clear to start the construction, first laid out a small shipyard just below the bridge site, a curiosity to the people of the inland city. Here several scows were built for the purpose of ferrying heavy materials through the Enfield Canal on the way up to Springfield, the width of each being about the same as the distance across the canal. Another giant construction was the
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railroad yard which the contractors built in Hampden Park, leasing the land from the Boston and Maine Railroad. A half-mile of side- track was built from the wharf to the park, which was used as a storage place for the bridge materials.
The Converse Company had to bring equipment from some of their other jobs, especially from Virginia, where the company had been doing a great deal of war work. Freight transportation was in bad shape at the time, and the bridge job was delayed more than three months because of this. The Converse Company enlisted the aid of the county commissioners, particularly that of Charles C. Spellman, head of the board, in appealing to the Interstate Commerce Commis- sion at Washington in giving priority rights to the shipments for the work, but it was late in the summer of 1920 before the job really got into full swing. This episode was the only serious impediment to the work, and the bridge was finished before the scheduled time.
In 1922 the structure was completed, and it was a thing of beauty, broad and efficient. It spanned the river in graceful arches, and its individuality was heightened by the four great towers topped by bronze lanterns, which were erected at each end of the channel piers. Smaller towers, or pylons, marked the symmetrical spans, leaving the two western spans to balance architecturally the viaduct over the railroad.
There was opposition to the erection of the towers at first, on the basis that too much money would be spent on these purely ornamental structures. Experts pointed out that the cost of the towers would only be two per cent. of the total cost of the entire bridge, and would enhance its appearance appreciably, and the opposition died down. The bridge was named in memory of the patriotic part the county played in the military engagements that America entered. Each tower has a bronze tablet. The tablets on the downstream shafts com- memorate the part played in the pioneer and colonial period and in the Revolutionary War; those on the upstream shafts commemorate the Civil War and the World War.
The dedication of the bridge in early August of 1922 was one of the greatest public celebrations ever to take place in Springfield. A grandstand was constructed on the bridge, seating 4,000 people, and many thousands more filled the rest of the bridge. There was an historical pageant, memorializing every period of the history of the
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county from the time of William Pynchon down to modern times, and in this Holyoke, Chicopee, Westfield and a host of the smaller towns of Hampden County participated. Floats in the parade commemo- rated the first cabin on the Agawam River and many other buildings and scenes of historical significance. At night great floodlights played on the bridge and on the river, which was filled with small craft of every description. A spectacular display of fireworks lit up the sky at night, although the effect of many of the set pieces was lost to the spectators on the bridge when an unfriendly south wind blew the smoke in front of them.
Through it all the old toll bridge watched silent, dark, inscrutable. It was the old forgotten in the new. Around its entrances were placarded various gaudy advertisements for commercial products, which somehow could not hide or mar the majesty of the historic structure. In a way, the old toll bridge had the last word, because as the bombs burst in the air, their loud reverberations rolling down to the crowd, there would be a short pause, and the same noise would again come in the echo from the long, barn-like bridge a short dis- tance upstream.
The bridge was dedicated by Julia Sanderson, famous on Broad- way. Governor Cox attended and passed between long lines of sol- diers drawn up at the bridge entrance. Charles Bosworth delivered the dedication speech, eulogizing the great events and the great men in the Connecticut Valley.
From time to time disasters have come to Hampden County. Some have been large and some small, some caused by man and some by nature-wars, accidents, disease, fires, storms, and even earth- quakes. Each separate catastrophe has for a time occupied its place in the sun and taken its separate toll of life and property. Each, in the imminent rush and bustle of living, has caused its momentary ripple in the serenity of the county and then passed on, to be faintly remembered or completely forgotten.
In the month of March, 1936, a disaster came that will never be forgotten so long as there are old men to remember it and historians to record it for future generations. A disaster which dwarfed into pale insignificance each one before it, which left misery and destruc- tion in its wake, which paralyzed industry and crippled cities and towns, which drove people from their homes in terror and destroyed their belongings, and which cost millions of dollars in rehabilitation.
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During the first two weeks of March rumors came down from the North of quick-melting snow and ice, which were pouring extra water into the upper Connecticut River and its tributaries. Residents of Westfield, Holyoke, Springfield and the other centers of the county paid little attention. They had seen floods before. The Connecticut could be counted upon to overflow its banks every spring, and low- lying farm lands and a few buildings along the river bank would be inundated. The 1927 flood, it was true, had reached the unprece- dented height of 22.44 feet at Springfield, and had caused considerable property damage. But that had been an extraordinary event, brought about by freakish November weather. Residents of Hampden County knew what a real flood was only through accounts in the newspapers and through the news reels. The Yang-Tse River in far off China, or the Mississippi in this country, might become temperamental and overflow their banks; but these were distant places, and the Connecti- cut was, year in and year out, well behaved.
Then the flood struck with sudden, dramatic swiftness. Moun- tain snows, softened by continued unseasonable warm weather, turned placid streams farther north into raging torrents. Southeast storms, driving hard, deluged the area with tons of water. Whole commu- nities in New Hampshire, Vermont and the upper part of Massachu- setts were engulfed, railroad tracks and highways were submerged, crippling transportation and communication, bridges were torn away from their moorings, and power plants were rendered useless, throw- ing large areas into darkness and leaving factory machines merely inanimate steel skeletons. Those living on the lowlands fled from their homes, carrying what they could of their personal belongings. The river was a rushing, seething torrent.
In Springfield the river rose at an alarming rate. Hundreds of automobiles, filled with curious sightseers, choked the Holyoke road with traffic on the way to view the Holyoke Dam, which stood staunchly against the powerful thrust of the onrushing water that was pouring over it at such a height that it could be measured only with difficulty. Officials expressed some concern for a time as to its ability to withstand the terrific strain placed upon it. Supposedly authentic reports from the million dollar dam at Vernon, Vermont, warned that there was danger of the dam going at any moment, and that if it did go the result would be the worst disaster ever to take
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place in New England. The flow over the Turners Falls Dam reached the staggering volume of 230,000 cubic feet a second.
By March 18 the people of Springfield began to feel real alarm. Orders were given by the superintendent of streets, Cornelius E. Phillips, for patroling the entire north end section, and having an adequate supply of sandbags ready for use in the low part just across the Chicopee line. Every possible precaution was taken, but nothing was equal to the rise of the water. The Westfield River, ordinarily a calm tributary of the Connecticut, passed the peak of the 1927 flood and rose at the phenomenal rate of two and one-half feet per hour. The Great River Bridge, the only connection between the north and south parts of Westfield, was closed. Water reached the first floor windows of many homes in that city, and residents evacuated their homes. Company H of the National Guard was mobilized at the new Franklin Street Armory, ready for an immediate call. Hundreds of school children, dismissed from school before noon, were unable to reach their homes, and the telephone wires buzzed with frantic calls from worried parents. Water submerged railroad tracks in all directions, cutting off transportation. Report after report came in foreshadowing the havoc that was to be wreaked in Springfield.
It was on the morning of March 19 that Springfield first felt the direct and paralyzing effect of the flood. The north end became a victim of the sullen waters. The river swept over the dike in the Plainfield Street section, the main volume of water pouring in through a break about eight hundred feet from the North End Bridge. Imme- diately two local companies of the 104th Regiment, National Guard, were called out by Sheriff David Manning and were assigned to flood and relief work. The river at the same time jumped its banks in the south end, in Agawam, and in West Springfield.
Five thousand people fled from their homes. Many of them stayed until the last minute, staring with unbelieving eyes at the rising waters. Some, more optimistic than the others, waited a little too long, and had to be taken to dry land in boats. At one A. M. the water had reached the level of 23.9 feet, 1.2 feet above the 1927 record height. The street department had fought to keep the river from cresting the dike, and weary men reinforced it with bag after bag of sand. But like a beaten and disorganized army, they were forced to retreat, and the waters rolled over the entire Plainfield
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Street and upper north end section. On that memorable morning acetylene flood light played along the dike and curious people from . the upper sections of the city, who ordinarily would be sound asleep at this early hour, came to stare with amazed eyes at the strange spectacle.
An area one-half mile square was quickly flooded to a depth of two feet in the south end section. Columbus Avenue, Main Street, Oswego Street and Marble Street were covered with over a foot of water. Dozens of automobiles were stalled and towed out to prevent further damage. All the families on Main Street, West Springfield, south of Park Avenue, were ordered from their homes by the town selectmen in the dead of night, and many awoke to find the water swirling around their cellar windows. Lantern lights flared and bobbed along the great dark expanse of water where land had once been. In Chicopee more than one hundred families from the Ferry Lane section alone were taken from their homes. Street railway service was disrupted, and trolleys going to Holyoke could proceed only as far as the Springfield Country Club on the Riverdale Road, and shortly afterward could not even get out of Springfield. Every extra operator available was called in by the telephone company to keep communication with the outside world. The city officials met in extra- ordinary session, calling on every relief agency available to help, and the response was magnificent. Those living in the higher areas were asked by radio to open their homes for the helpless refugees, who in many cases had only the clothes they wore. Arrangements were quickly made to use schools as centers of relief shelter for the home- less. Red Cross workers and those of other relief agencies reported for immediate duty to their superiors.
West Springfield, where the land is generally lower, felt the worst effects of the flood somewhat before Springfield did. The water broke over the bank at Chapin Street close to the Boston and Albany tracks and cut a swath straight through the town, following several streets. Later the dike behind the General Fibre Box Company gave way, and the rampant water flowed over the meadows south of Memorial Avenue and threatened the Merrick section. Some people, still inclined to disparage the menace despite the evidence crying out before them, refused to leave, but when the section near Circuit Ave- nue was flooded as the dike in that area gave way, people asked no
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more questions nor advanced further arguments. They left with all possible speed.
Main Street in Springfield was jammed with cars, as the routes both north and south were closed. Bluecoats worked frantically to unravel the jam and finally succeeded by rerouting traffic up State Street and through Chestnut and Maple. Railroad routes were being cut off hourly, and worried crowds filled the waiting room at the Union Station. Among these were numerous college girls who, taking the situation philosophically, sat in fours on the floor of the station and played bridge.
The spectre of fear was everywhere. Fear of a food shortage, fear of typhoid and other diseases, fear of a milk shortage. Store after store on Main Street and the lower area around it closed as water backed up through the sewers and flooded cellars. Frantic store owners and their help worked against time, carrying goods to the upper floors or placing them on upper shelves. Executives wore hip boots and toiled side by side with their employees. Suction pumps were at a premium, the demand far exceeding the supply. Shoe stores sold out their entire stock of rubber boots and telegraphed for addi- tional shipments. The water made no exceptions. Large stores as well as small fell victims. All along Main Street, D. H. Brigham and Company, Forbes and Wallace, Johnson's Bookstore, Meekins, Pack- ard and Wheat, the Albert Steiger Company, the Springfield Public Market and others had their basements inundated.
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