Fitchburg, Massachusetts: Rollstone Boulder: Blown Up, Reassembled
A rock loved so much that it was blown up to save it. The town then reassembled the rock in a place of honor downtown, with its Frankenstein monster seams clearly visible.
- Address:
- 935 Main St., Fitchburg, MA
- Directions:
- Northwest edge of downtown, in a traffic island at the intersection of Main St. and Caldwell Place. Across the street from the Unitarian Church.
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Fitchburg is home to the Rollstone Boulder: a 110 ton rock that migrated from New Hampshire to Massachusetts during the Ice Age. It became an iconic symbol for the city. Citizens were upset when quarrying in the late 1890s began to endanger the fracturing boulder.
Years later, with its destruction believed to be imminent, the boulder was blown up... to save it. The pieces were moved from Rollstone Hill and, with the aid of photographs, drawings, and a numbering system, reassembled on a traffic island in downtown Fitchburg.
A plaque affixed to the Rollstone Boulder inaccurately claims the rock originated from Mount Monadnock. There's no evidence of that, but the seams where the boulder was put back together are visible and very real.
[Kurt Deion / kurtshistoricsites.com, 06/16/2018]Nearby Offbeat Places
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