This week, we’re speaking with Elena Palladino, the author of the recent book Lost Towns of the Swift River Valley: Drowned by the Quabbin. This book outlines the 20th century development of Boston’s modern water supply system through the eyes of the residents of the four towns in north central Massachusetts that were sacrificed to create the Quabbin reservoir: Greenwich, Enfield, Dana, and Prescott. The story is bookended by the farewell ball, held on the night when the four towns legally ceased to exist, and largely told by following the lives of three prominent valley residents. The book reaches back to the last ice age to describe the forces that shaped the Swift River valley into the ideal site for a reservoir, to English colonization to explain why the valley remained less populated and less developed into the 1930s, and thus easier to take through eminent domain, and forward to today to understand the immense benefits modern Bostonians enjoy thanks to the sacrifice of Swift River valley residents of a century ago.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/322/

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On Tuesday, March 18, I’ll be talking about the first streetlights in Boston, which came over from England on the forgotten fourth tea ship in 1773, and managed to survive the tea party and a shipwreck, before falling victim to Boston politics on the eve of revolution. It will be a virtual talk on Zoom, so you can tune in from wherever you are at 7pm. Register now!

Elena Palladino has a bachelors from Simmons College and masters degrees in literary and cultural studies from Carnegie Mellon University and in higher education from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. She works in the President’s office at Smith College and lives in Ware, Mass, where many of the residents displaced from the four towns that were flooded to create the Quabbin moved to. In our conversation, you’ll learn about the surprisingly personal connection to the dam project that she discovered after moving into her home in Ware that inspired her to write her first book on the construction of the Quabbin.