Mine Falls Park

Coordinates: 42°45′02″N 71°30′15″W / 42.75056°N 71.50417°W / 42.75056; -71.50417 Mine Falls Park is a 325-acre (132 ha) park in the city of Nashua, New Hampshire. Located in the heart of the city, it was purchased in 1969 from the Nashua, New Hampshire Foundation with city and federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) money. It is bordered on the north by the Nashua River and on the south by the millpond and canal system.

Visitors to the park from around New Hampshire and Massachusetts enjoy numerous recreational opportunities, such as walking, boating, fishing, cross-country skiing, and biking. The park also includes several fields for organized sports. The trails provide the city's only bicycle and pedestrian crossing of the Nashua River west of Main Street.^[1]

The park was once the property of the Nashua Manufacturing Company and was later acquired by Textron who sold it to the Nashua, New Hampshire Foundation (a group of local businessmen) in the 1940s.

The name "Mine Falls" dates from the 18th century, when low-quality lead was supposedly mined from the island below the falls. In the early 19th century, the potential of the Nashua River to drive the wheels of industrial mills was recognized. Workers used shovels and mules to dig a 3-mile-long (5 km) canal, which provides a vertical drop of 36 feet (11 m) at the mills. The first gates were built in 1826, and the gatehouse near the falls was built in 1886.

In 1987, the Nashua River Canal and the Nashua Manufacturing Company Historic District (the Millyard) were placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1992, the park trails were designated part of the New Hampshire Heritage Trail system, which extends 130 miles (210 km) along the Merrimack River from Massachusetts to Canada. Mine Falls (on the Nashua River) is now the site of a small, city owned (managed by Algonquin Power) hydroelectric dam with a capacity of 3 megawatts.^[2]

Starting in 2005, the park has been the site of the New Hampshire high school cross country championships.

City officials had long tolerated an encampment of the homeless, known as "Maple Island", near the millyard in the park. An attack on a homeless man in 2009 prompted renewed concern about it, and officials cleared the settlement. Some local homeless made a new camp on nearby private land.^[3]

See also

• Mine Falls Gatehouse

References

1. ^ "Mine Falls Park". City of Nashua. http://www.gonashua.com/CityGovernment/Departments/ParksandRecreation/MineFallsPark/tabid/344/Default.aspx. Retrieved July 6, 2010. 
2. ^ "Algonquin Power - Mine Falls". http://www.algonquinpower.com/business/facility/hydroelectric_minefalls.asp. Retrieved October 6, 2010. 
3. ^ Andrew Wolfe (March 23, 2010). "Plea due in attack on homeless man at Mine Falls Park". The Telegraph of Nashua. http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/681712-196/plea-deal-in-homeless-beating.html. Retrieved July 6, 2010.