The Goodnough Dike (actually a dam) is on the southeastern end of the

Quabbin Reservoir The Quabbin Reservoir is the largest inland body of water in Massachusetts, and was built between 1930 and 1939. Along with the Wachusett Reservoir, it is the primary water supply for Boston, to the east, and 40 other cities and towns in Greate ...

, the largest water body in

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. It impounds the waters of Beaver Brook and therefore closes that exit to the Chicopee River Watershed. The Goodnough Dike is not as large as the Winsor Dam, but it is equally important as they both trap the waters of the

. This dam is part of the metropolitan Boston's water supply, maintained by the

Massachusetts Water Resources Authority The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) is a public authority in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that provides wholesale drinking water and sewage services to certain municipalities and industrial users in the state, primarily in th ...

Technical information

The dam was built 1933-38. Its width at the top is 35 ft ( 10.67 m) and 878 ft (267.61 m) at the bottom. It is 264 ft (80.47 m) above the bedrock and 135 ft (41.15 m) above Beaver Brook. There was 2.5 million cubic yards of fill used in the construction and the dam contains 31 caissons. The elevation is 540 ft (164.59 m) MSL.

History

The dam was named after X. Henry Goodnough, who was chair of the Boston Metropolitan Water and Sewer Board during 1921. This dike is part of the Quabbin Reservoir facility. This dike is sometimes called the Quabbin Dike, however its name has never been changed from its original and, in fact, remains as originally named, imprinted on the plaques and signs at the site in the Quabbin Reservoir reservation. Frank E. Winsor was chief engineer of the Board from 1926 until his death in 1939 and as such was deeply involved in the design construction of Goodnough Dike as well as Winsor Dam and Quabbin Reservoir The

is one of the largest fabricated public water supplies in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Created in the 1930s by the construction of two huge earthen dams, the Winsor Dam, and the Goodnough Dike, the reservoir is fed by the Swift River, and seasonally the

Ware River The Ware River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed April 1, 2011 river in central Massachusetts. It has two forks, its West Branch, which begins in Hubbardston, Massa ...

. Four towns were flooded in the Swift River Valley. Construction of the reservoir remains a great engineering feat and Quabbin is one of the largest unfiltered water supplies in the world. The reservoir is 18 miles (28.96 km) long and has 181 miles (291.23 km) of shoreline including 61 miles (98.15 km) along the reservoir's 60 islands. Quabbin collects an average of one-half of the precipitation that falls on its watershed. When full, the reservoir holds about of water.

References

Technical information
{{Massachusetts Dams in Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Hampshire County, Massachusetts