Compact natural park featuring a tiered waterfall, covered bridge, trout pond, and wooded walking trails set within a former historic mill site.
General Information
How to Get There
From Southbury (3 mi): Take Route 67 East to Route 188, turn onto Quaker Farms Road, and follow signs to the park entrance and parking area.
Overview
Southford Falls State Park is a public recreation area covering 126 acres in the towns of Oxford and Southbury, Connecticut. The state park offers fishing, hiking, waterfalls, and a covered bridge over Eight Mile Brook.
History
The park was the site of an attack by the Sons of Liberty, in 1775, on a mill owned by pro-British loyalists. After a portion of the broken millstone was found at the foot of the falls in 2002, a park sign (pictured at left) was erected to present details of the story.
The fast flowing waters of Eight Mile Brook as it drops steeply from Lake Quassapaug to the Housatonic River provided power for an early industrial complex, which at one time included gristmills, sawmills, and the shops of iron workers, button makers, knife makers, and other skilled tradesmen. Evidence in the channel suggests that man-made improvements were introduced to strengthen the river's flow. At the turn of the 20th century, the Diamond Match Company bought up the site and built a factory for the manufacture of cardboard matchboxes. After the factory burned down for a second time, the site was ceded to the state in 1927. The state park was established in 1932.
The park's recreational features include hiking trails, picnicking facilities, skiing and ice-skating in winter, field sports, and fishing. It is a designated Trout Park, stocked weekly with trout from the state's fish hatcheries.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Southford Falls State Park", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0
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