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A hiker crosses a bridge over Mashamoquet Brook. (Betsy Graham)
Mashamoquet Brook flows through the 917-acre state park. (Betsy Graham)
A plaque marks a cave at Mashamoquet Brook State Park in Pomfret, where in 1742, Israel Putnam killed what was believed to have been the last wolf in Connecticut. (Lisa Brownell)
At the end of the winter season, hikers encounter a snow squall. (Betsy Graham)
Published April 08. 2021 6:30AM By
Steve Fagin
Imagine that if someone today killed the only known lynx in Colorado, or the last Florida panther, and not only was the site of the shooting later listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but a town was then named after the hunter.
POMFRET A deteriorating town bridge whose weight limit was previously dropped from 36 tons to 3 has now been entirely closed to traffic for an “indeterminate” period due to substructure damage, officials said.
The 25-foot Taft Pond Road bridge, which up until July carried up to 360 vehicles a day across the Mashamoquet Brook, was closed on Friday by order of the state Department of Transportation in anticipation of a stop-gap rehab project designed to get the span back to some level of load-bearing capacity.
First Selectwoman Maureen Nicholson during a Monday Board of Selectman meeting said she watched crews last week attempt to put Jersey barriers on the bridge, built in 1900 and reconstructed in 1993, in anticipation of the traffic ban.