Mount Greylock - Structures On The Mountain

Structures On The Mountain

Today, the 12,500 acres (51 km2) is managed and operated by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, Division of State Parks and Recreation. The staffed Visitors Center in Lanesborough is open year-round (1.5 miles off Route 7) and provides orientation, trail maps, informational brochures, exhibits, and accessible rest rooms. Five lean-to shelters and Mount Greylock Campground are available for backpacking. About 70 mi (110 km) of trails are located on the mountain, including the Appalachian Trail.

Prominent features on the summit are the Massachusetts Veterans War Memorial Tower, Bascom Lodge, the Thunderbolt Ski Shelter, and a television and radio tower. Because of the cultural significance of the mountain and excellent examples CCC period park structures, the Mount Greylock Summit Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in on April 20, 1998, reference number 98000349.

The Veterans War Memorial Tower was approved by the state legislature in October 1930, supported by Senator Theodore Plunkett of Adams and Governor Frank G. Allen. The memorial was originally intended to be erected in Boston's Charles River Basin, before plans were changed to build it on Mount Greylock. It was designed by Boston-based architects Maginnis & Walsh, and built by contractors John G. Roy & Son of Springfield in 1931-32 at a cost of $200,000. It takes the form of a perpetually lighted beacon to honor the state's dead from World War I (and subsequent conflicts). The light used to be the strongest beacon in Massachusetts, with a nighttime visible range of up to 70 miles.

The architectural design of the tower, a 93-foot (28 m) tall shaft with eight frieze-framed observation openings, was intended to have no suggestion of Utilitarianism but instead to display classic austerity. It includes some minor Art Deco details such as the decorative eagle on the base which were designed in part by John Bizzozero of Quincy, Massachusetts . Inside it is a domed chamber for a reverential shine that was intended to store tablets and war relicts from wartime units in the state's history.

Although local legislators and residents advocated for local stone to be used, it was ultimately quarried from Quincy Granite. In part, it bears the inscription "they were faithful even unto death." One of the inscriptions inside the monument is, "Of those immortal dead who live again in the minds made better by their presence", which is a line from a poem by George Eliot. The translucent globe of light on top, originally illuminated by twelve 1,500 watt lights (now six), is said to be visible at night for 70 mi (110 km). The formal dedication ceremony on June 30, 1933 by Governor Joseph B. Ely was attended by about 1,500 and broadcast nationally over NBC radio.

Bascom Lodge was built between 1932-1938 using native materials of Greylock schist and red spruce. Designed by Pittsfield architect, Joseph McArthur Vance, it displays the rustic architectural design of period park structures. The Greylock Commission had desired to rebuild a more substantial shelter for visitors and hikers to the summit after the previous summit house (built c.1902) burned down in 1929. The initial west wing was constructed in 1932 by Jules Emil Deloye, Jr. The main-central and east wings were completed later 1935-38 by the CCC, supervised by Deloye. The lodge was named in honor of John Bascom, a Greylock Reservation Commissioner and Williams College professor, who had a strong association with the mountain during his lifetime.

Today, Bascom Lodge is run by the Bascom Lodge Group, in partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation's Historic Curatorship Program.

The Thunderbolt Ski Shelter, also designed by Joseph McArthur Vance, was built in 1940 by the CCC to principally serve as a warming hut for skiers using the Thunderbolt Trail. Also rustic in design and built of stone and wood beams, the interior has four wooden benches built into a large four hearth fireplace in the center.

Greylock Glen, site of a former proposed tramway/ski/resort development from 1953–1977, is a 1,063-acre (4.30 km2) state park located in the town of Adams, adjoining Mount Greylock State Reservation. It was acquired by the state in 1985 to create a regional economic facility in the form of a joint public-private development.

Three radio and television stations transmit from a broadcast tower below the summit on the west side: WAMC (90.3 Albany, New York); WCDC-TV (19/36 Adams, Massachusetts); and W38DL (38 Adams, Massachusetts (Repeater of WNYT-TV). A NOAA Weather Radio station (WWF-48, 162.525 MHz) broadcasts from a different tower on the mountain.