Vermont Panorama – Stoughton Pond

Springfield, Vermont was a national center for the machine tool industry a few decades ago. Machine tool factories are where you make the machines that make the machines. More to the point, it’s where you make the machines that make cars and washing machines. And in the 1940’s, it’s where you make the machines that make tanks and planes.

That’s important.

So the Army Corps of Engineers decided that having the Black River flood would be a bad idea since it runs right next to the factories for Jones & Lamson, Fellows, Bryant, and Lovejoy. They solved that problem by putting a couple of dams on the Black River. One is next to the airport, north of Springfield in the appropriately named North Springfield. Just north of that, up in Perkinsville on the North Branch of the Black River, is a second dam with a nice recreation area behind the dam. That’s Stoughton Pond.

It’s a great place to meet friends you haven’t seen in a while. Maybe the next time we’ll bring a kayak and go for a paddle. Maybe bring a fishing pole and see if we can find some of those smallmouth bass.