Arlington’s Great Meadows
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Arlington’s Great Meadows
Arlington's Great Meadows is a meadow located adjacent to the Minuteman Bikeway in Lexington, Massachusetts. The meadow was once the site of a dairy farm, which was used for livestock and crop harvesting. In 1871, Great Meadows was acquired by the town of Arlington, Massachusetts for use as a water storage area for the Mystic River. After being drained in the early 20th century, it was turned into a protected area for wildlife. It currently remains a nature preserve and serves as a popular recreational area, and an important piece in local flood control. History Originally known as "Alewife Meadows" during colonial times, European settlers used the area to harvest oak, and harvest trees for the Medford Shipyards. Due to the soil being too soft to support buildings, the settlers left the marsh open and instead used it to graze livestock. A local family operated a dairy farm on Great Meadows until the 1860s. They also built a mill nearby the site to help build the foundations fo ...
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Lexington, Massachusetts
Lexington is a suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is 10 miles (16 km) from Downtown Boston. The population was 34,454 as of the 2020 census. The area was originally inhabited by Native Americans, and was first settled by Europeans in 1641 as a farming community. Lexington is well known as the site of the first shots of the American Revolutionary War, in the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775, where the " Shot heard 'round the world" took place. It is home to Minute Man National Historical Park. History Indigenous history Native Americans inhabited the area that would become Lexington for thousands of years prior to European colonization of the Americas, as attested by a woodland era archaeological site near Loring Hill south of the town center. At the time of European contact, the area may have been a border region between Naumkeag or Pawtucket to the northeast, Massachusett to the south, and Nipmuc to the west, though the land was ev ...
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Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Middlesex County is located in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,632,002, making it the most populous county in both Massachusetts and New England and the List of the most populous counties in the United States, 22nd most populous county in the United States. Middlesex County is one of two U.S. counties (along with Santa Clara County, California) to be amongst the top 25 counties with the highest household income and the 25 most populated counties. It is included in the Census Bureau's Boston–Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge–Newton, Massachusetts, Newton, MA–New Hampshire, NH Greater Boston, Metropolitan Statistical Area. As part of the 2020 United States census, the Commonwealth's mean center of population for that year was Geographic coordinate system, geo-centered in Middlesex County, in the town of Natick, Massachusetts, Natick (this is not to be confused with the geographic ...
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Meadow
A meadow ( ) is an open habitat, or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non-woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as these areas maintain an open character. Meadows may be naturally occurring or artificially created from cleared shrub or woodland. They can occur naturally under favourable conditions (see perpetual meadows), but they are often maintained by humans for the production of hay, fodder, or livestock. Meadow habitats, as a group, are characterized as "semi-natural grasslands", meaning that they are largely composed of species native to the region, with only limited human intervention. Meadows attract a multitude of wildlife, and support flora and fauna that could not thrive in other habitats. They are ecologically important as they provide areas for animal courtship displays, nesting, food gathering, pollinating insects, and sometimes sheltering, if the vegetation is high enough. There are multiple types of meadows, in ...
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Minuteman Bikeway
The Minuteman Bikeway is a 10-mile (16-kilometre) paved multi-use rail trail located in the Greater Boston area of Massachusetts. It runs from Bedford to Alewife station, at the northern end of the Red Line in Cambridge, passing through the towns of Lexington and Arlington along the way. Also along the route are several notable regional sites, including Alewife Brook Reservation, the Cyrus Dallin Art Museum, Spy Pond, "Arlington’s Great Meadows" (actually located in Lexington), the Battle Green in Lexington, and Hanscom Air Force Base. At its Cambridge terminus, the bikeway connects with four other bike paths: *the Fitchburg Cutoff Path *the Cambridge Linear Park which, in turn, leads to the Somerville Community Path. *the Alewife Brook Greenway, a connection to the Mystic River bike path, following Alewife Brook. The Alewife Brook extension received $4M from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 as the "Minuteman Bikepath Connector" project. * a sidewalk pat ...
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Arlington, Massachusetts
Arlington is a New England town, town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The town is six miles (10 km) northwest of Boston, Massachusetts, Boston, and its population was 46,308 at the 2020 census. History European colonists settled the Town of Arlington in 1635 as a village within the boundaries of Cambridge, Massachusetts, under the name Menotomy, an Algonquian languages, Algonquian word considered by some to mean "swift running water", though Linguistics, linguistic anthropologists dispute that translation. A larger area, including land that was later to become the town of Belmont, Massachusetts, Belmont, and outwards to the shore of the Mystic River, which had previously been part of Charlestown, Massachusetts, Charlestown, was incorporated on February 27, 1807, as West Cambridge, replacing Menotomy. In 1867, the town was renamed Arlington, in honor of those buried in Arlington National Cemetery; the name change took effect that April 3 ...
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Mystic River
The Mystic River is a riverU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed April 1, 2011 in Massachusetts, in the United States. In Massachusett, means "large estuary," alluding to the tidal nature of the Mystic. The resemblance to the English word ' is a coincidence, which the colonists naturally followed. The Mystic River lies to the north of Boston and flows approximately parallel to the lower portions of the Charles River. Encompassing of watershed, the river flows from the Lower Mystic Lake and travels through the Boston-area communities of East Boston, Chelsea, Charlestown, Everett, Medford, Somerville, and Arlington. The river joins the Charles River to form inner Boston Harbor. Its watershed contains 44 lakes and ponds, the largest of which is Spot Pond in the Middlesex Fells, with an area of . Significant portions of the river's shores are within the Mystic River Reservation and are admini ...
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Wildfire
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a bushfire(bushfires in Australia, in Australia), desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, peat fire, prairie fire, vegetation fire, or veld fire. Fire ecology, Some natural forest ecosystems depend on wildfire. Wildfires are distinct from beneficial human usage of wildland fire, called controlled burn, controlled burning, although controlled burns can turn into wildfires. Fossil charcoal indicates that wildfires began soon after the appearance of terrestrial plants approximately 419 million years ago during the Silurian period. Earth's carbon-rich vegetation, seasonally dry climates, atmospheric oxygen, and widespread lightning and volcanic ignitions create favorable conditions for fires. The occurre ...
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Minuteman Bikeway At The Site Of Pierces Bridge, Lexington MA
Minutemen were members of the organized New England colonial militia companies trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies during the American Revolutionary War. They were known for being ready at a minute's notice, hence the name. Minutemen provided a highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that enabled the colonies to respond immediately to military threats. They were an evolution from the prior colonial rapid-response units. The minutemen were among the first to fight in the American Revolution. Their teams constituted about a quarter of the entire militia. They were generally younger, more mobile, and provided with weapons and arms by the local governments. They were still part of the overall militia regimental organizations in the New England Colonies. The term has also been applied to various later United States civilian paramilitary forces. History In the colony of Massachusetts Bay, all able-bodied men between the ages of 16 and 60 were required to parti ...
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