Loaded with colorful carnations, petunias and other flora, the beloved Bridge of Flowers in western Massachusetts is open again after a year of repairs.
Gathered on the corner of Bridge and State streets in Shelburne Falls Monday, at least a hundred locals and officials celebrated one of Franklin County’s most iconic structures.
First built as a trolley bridge in the early 20th century to better connect the towns of Buckland and Shelburne, the structure spanning the Deerfield River is a major tourist attraction that draws roughly 100,000 visitors a year.
The site has grown in popularity, just as the flowers that have grown on it ever since trolley service stopped in the 1920s and volunteers stepped in.
“Left with an abandoned bridge, the Shelburne Falls Women's Club really made lemonade out of lemons by lining the bridge with flowers,” said Tighe & Bond bridge engineer Andrea Lacasse, describing the Bridge of Flowers’s opening in 1929 after volunteers filled it in-part with loam and plants.
In the years that followed, everything from perennials to annuals to shrubs and memorials have lined the narrow bridge that also holds a major water main for both communities.
It’s a unique structure that’s been the subject of major repairs before, and in the wake of 2011’s Hurricane Irene, it became clear another round of fixes was needed.
Heavy, rapid waters hit the bridge hard at the time, flooding the area as well. Several years later, an assessment by Tighe & Bond found significant cracking in the concrete bridge, on top of its northwest wall leaning toward the river: issues that weren’t an immediate threat, but a threat all the same to the water main and bridge’s future.
At least $3.2 million dollars in funding would be secured for the project via the state’s MassWorks infrastructure program, with work kicking off in 2024.
“The engineers needed to access the inside of the bridge, which necessitated everything on the bridge [being] removed,” recounted Bridge of Flowers Committee Chair Annette Szpila. “It was a Herculean effort to make all of that happen, but it did! It was thanks to countless people in the community, on the Blossom Brigade… our gardeners - everything was led by Carol DeLorenzo and her assistant gardener, Elliston Bingham, and they made it happen.”
In the year that followed, as the bridge was dug up, the surrounding communities stepped up – taking in the flowers that could be preserved. At one point, a “Village of Flowers” initiative took off, with local businesses sporting blossoms while the bridge laid bare.
Now, the flowers are back – an array of reds, purples, yellows and blues. For longtime head gardener DeLorenzo, this has meant working with a blank canvas, alongside assistant gardener Bingham and various volunteers.
“I feel like the bridge has become my canvas, the plants are my palette,” she said. “I'm thinking in layers, I'm thinking 4D - I'm working in the ‘currently,’ but also … what's going to be here in many years to come… and we started over, right? My work of the last 25 years was obliterated, and this is now a brand new baby garden!”
That includes a few trees and shrub plants. After its revamp, the bridge no longer has the foliage and vines that once draped off its sides. Tighe & Bond Senior Project Manager Zachariah Chornyak tells WAMC special care is being taken to ensure plants with invasive roots that could threaten bridge integrity are either avoided or specially contained.
Chornyak also grew up in the area and says being able to come back his neck of the woods and see the project through has been something special, especially given the community’s energy.
“That atmosphere and attitude toward the bridge is really what drove the project success - I think people know that it's an economic driver, people know that it's going to draw people from out of town and support the local economy, and I think everybody embraces that,” Chornyak said. “It's great to be back here and providing something that I learned in college and can bring back to the community.”
Walking across the bridge Monday, including a special marker showing the town lines between Buckland and Shelburne, Emily Maienza says the bridge is more than just a tourist attraction.
“It brings all of us together more and … the towns, because I'm on the Shelburne side with you right now, but just over there, across the Deerfield River, we're on the Buckland side, so it's really joining two towns, two communities, bringing us closer together,” she tells WAMC. “We have one thing in common, which is this beautiful bridge of flowers, which is a real uniter.”
Amy Love adds that on top of being a community centerpiece, the bridge also brings people from far and wide.
“When I was a child, and when my children were young, we would look at the guestbooks at either end of the bridge, and the favorite game we played was ‘Which guest was from the farthest away?’ and consistently, there are people from China, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and places that just blew our minds,” she said. “… and that still happens.”
Both Buckland and Shelburne sport populations of about 1,800 each – with the village of Shelburne Falls shared between them and home to a number of artists and musicians.
There was no shortage of music Monday, with musicians like James Bird improvising for passersby.
Also playing nearby – Reverend Sarah Pirtle of the Cummington Village Church. She tells WAMC that amid the celebration, she played, in-part, to pay tribute to the indigenous peoples who called the area home for thousands of years before the arrival of settlers in the 1600s.
Pirtle came equipped with a flute crafted by Hawk Henries, a musician and artisan of Nipmuc descent.
“This is not originally the Deerfield River - that's a recent name - it's the Pocumpetekw for the Pocumtuck people, and that means ‘shallow, sandy waters,’ which this is. So, what happened is, for maybe 9,000 years, the Pocumtuck people would come here, and they would fish for salmon - there was a whole spirit of sharing. So, I wanted today to remember them.”
More music was further down the path. On the Shelburne side by the Red Dahlia Cafe was the band Forest Avenue, playing for those who crossed after the ceremony.
Nearby is a small fountain, designed by local artist John Sendelbach (one of several bridge pieces he’s had a hand in creating). For him, Monday’s event was something of a community outpouring.
“It really exemplifies the spirit of this community - they come together and they rally to make things happen, and this is really a public entity that's owned by the Shelburne Falls Water District, but the people treat it like their own and everyone should be applauded for that.”
The seasonal attraction remains open to the public, typically closing in late October.
