Natural Bridge State Park (Massachusetts)

Natural Bridge State Park (Massachusetts)

Natural Bridge State Park is a Massachusetts state park located in North Adams, Massachusetts, in the northwestern part of the state. It contains the only natural white marble arch/bridge in North America. The "natural bridge" for which the park is named, according to geologists, is 550 million year old bedrock marble, carved into an arch by the force of glacial melt water over 13,000 years ago.

Formerly the site of a marble quarry from 1810 to 1947 and privately owned tourist attraction from 1950 to 1983, the site became a state park in 1985. The arch and associated quarry have long attracted attention from hikers, including Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1838, who wrote of it (among other local features) in his An American Notebook.

Read more about Natural Bridge State Park (Massachusetts):  Hudson's Discovery, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Mills

Famous quotes containing the words natural, bridge, state and/or park:

    “You, that have not lived in thought but deed,
    Can have the purity of a natural force,
    But I, whose virtues are the definitions
    Of the analytic mind, can neither close
    The eye of the mind nor keep my tongue from speech.”
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    I see four nuns
    who sit like a bridge club,
    their faces poked out
    from under their habits,
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    The health of the soul is something we can be no more sure of than that of the body; and though a man may seem far from the passions, yet he is in as much danger of falling into them as one in a perfect state of health of having a fit of sickness.
    François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)

    Mrs. Mirvan says we are not to walk in [St. James’s] Park again next Sunday ... because there is better company in Kensington Gardens; but really, if you had seen how every body was dressed, you would not think that possible.
    Frances Burney (1752–1840)