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The front elevation of the Quabbin Visitor Center on a clear winter afternoon: a two-and-a-half-story red-brick Federal-style building with a slate roof and three pedimented dormers, two tall brick chimneys, twelve-over-twelve white-trimmed double-hung windows, a central white-columned portico over the front door with a fanlight medallion above, a low boxwood hedge and bare trees on the grass verge in front, a brick walkway leading to the entrance, and a sandwich-board sign reading 'VISITOR CENTER' on the path beside the steps.
Things to See · Museum
Quabbin Visitor Center, Belchertown, December 2022. Photo by engineerchange, source, CC BY 2.0.

Quabbin Visitor Center

Belchertown, Hampshire County

Category
Museum
Town
Belchertown
County
Hampshire
Admission
Free

The Quabbin Visitor Center is the interpretive museum for the Quabbin Reservoir, set just inside Quabbin Park off Route 9 in Belchertown, at the east end of the Winsor Dam. Admission is free and the building is the natural starting point for any visit to Quabbin, the place to get oriented before driving the auto loop, walking the dam, or climbing the tower on Quabbin Hill.

The reservoir itself is jointly managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) and the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA); the visitor center is run on the DCR side, in a brick Federal-style building that once served as the reservoir’s administrative offices.

What to see

  • The lost towns: exhibits on Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott, the four valley towns disincorporated in April 1938 and flooded as the reservoir filled. Maps, photographs, salvaged objects, and a model of the valley before inundation. Parts of Pelham and New Salem were also taken.
  • Building the Quabbin: the engineering of the Winsor Dam and the Goodnough Dike, construction photos from the 1930s, and the story of the Quabbin Aqueduct that carries the water east toward the Wachusett Reservoir and on into the MWRA system serving metropolitan Boston.
  • Watershed and wildlife: displays on the forest, the reservoir’s water-quality role, and the wildlife that uses the protected watershed: white-tailed deer, beaver, loons, and the bald eagles re-established at Quabbin in the 1980s, now a regular sight from the dam and the Enfield Lookout.
  • Maps and trail information: staff and volunteers at the desk hand out the gate map and can point you toward the auto road, the tower, and the watershed gates that ring the rest of the reservoir.

Visiting

The visitor center is at the east abutment of the Winsor Dam, reached by the entrance road off Route 9 in Belchertown; parking is free in the paved lot directly in front of the building. The visitor center is currently open Thursday through Tuesday, 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM, and closed Wednesday; Quabbin Park and the visitor center close on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. The center is fully accessible and makes a good 30-to-60-minute stop before or after the drive through Quabbin Park.

Sources