Great Blue Hill is a hill of 635 feet (194 m) located within the

Blue Hills Reservation Blue Hills Reservation is a state park in Norfolk County, Massachusetts in the United States. Managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, it covers parts of Milton, Quincy, Braintree, Canton, Randolph, and Dedh ...

Milton Milton may refer to: Names * Milton (surname), a surname (and list of people with that surname) ** John Milton (1608–1674), English poet * Milton (given name) ** Milton Friedman (1912–2006), Nobel laureate in Economics, author of '' Free t ...

, Randolph and Canton,

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

, about south of downtown

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. It is the highest point in Norfolk County and the

Greater Boston Greater Boston is the metropolitan region of New England encompassing the municipality of Boston (the capital of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England) and its surrounding areas. The region forms the northern ar ...

area. The modern name for the hill was given by early English colonists who, while sailing along the coastline, noticed the bluish hue of the exposed granite faces when viewed from a distance (due to

Riebeckite Riebeckite is a sodium-rich member of the amphibole group of silicate minerals, chemical formula Na2(Fe2+3Fe3+2)Si8O22(OH)2. It forms a solid solution series with magnesioriebeckite. It crystallizes in the monoclinic system, usually as long prisma ...

). The Blue Hills' eastern slopes face the ocean and lie within Quincy. The area once attracted quarrying for its "blue granite". Great Blue Hill was a point of reference for the Indians, and the local tribe were known as the "people at the large hill" (''Massachuseuck''). The English called them the

, which ultimately became the name of the state.

Geography

The north and west sides of Great Blue Hill drain into the

Neponset River The Neponset River is a river in eastern Massachusetts in the United States. Its headwaters are at the Neponset Reservoir in Foxborough, near Gillette Stadium. From there, the Neponset meanders generally northeast for about to its mouth at ...

, and thence into

Boston Harbor Boston Harbor is a natural harbor and estuary of Massachusetts Bay, and is located adjacent to the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Port of Boston, a major shipping facility in the northeastern United States. History Since ...

. The south and east sides of Great Blue Hill drain into the Blue Hill River, thence into the Farm River,

Monatiquot River The Monatiquot River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed April 1, 2011 river in Braintree, Massachusetts, formed by the confluence of the Farm River and Cochato River ...

Weymouth Fore River Weymouth Fore River is a small bay or estuary in eastern Massachusetts and is part of the Massachusetts Bay watershed. The headwater of Weymouth Fore River is formed by the confluence of the Monatiquot River and Smelt Brook in the Weymouth Land ...

, and into Boston Harbor. Its summit is the highest point in

and Norfolk County and also the highest within 10 miles of the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

coast south of central

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...

. For this reason, American meteorologist

Abbott Lawrence Rotch Abbott Lawrence Rotch (January 6, 1861 – April 7, 1912) was an American meteorologist and founder of the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory, the longest continually operating observation site in the United States and an important site for wo ...

chose Great Blue Hill as the site for an observatory, which became known as the

Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory The Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory in Milton, Massachusetts is the foremost structure associated with the history of weather observations in the United States. Located atop Great Blue Hill about 10 miles south of Boston, Massachusetts, it is ...

after its completion in 1885. Rotch conducted ground-breaking studies of the atmosphere at Blue Hill for many years, and meteorological data is still gathered at the site. From the Eliot Tower at the summit, the city of Boston and many of the surrounding hills of the

and Canton area are visible.

Other information

Great Blue Hill, and the Blue Hills Reservation in general, is a popular hiking destination, valued as much for its splendid trails and views as for its proximity to the metropolitan area. There is also

alpine skiing Alpine skiing, or downhill skiing, is the pastime of sliding down snow-covered slopes on skis with fixed-heel bindings, unlike other types of skiing ( cross-country, Telemark, or ski jumping), which use skis with free-heel bindings. Whether for ...

available at

Blue Hills Ski Area Blue Hills Ski Area is located on the western face of Great Blue Hill in Canton, Massachusetts. This land is part of the Blue Hills Reservation, a state park managed by the DCR. Blue Hills has eight trails covering a vertical drop of . The ...

, consisting of eight trails served by a double chair and two surface lifts. Summit Road, the steep paved road that leads to the top of the hill, is closed to cars except for employees of the weather observatory. However, the road is open to hikers and cyclists. Boston public radio and television stations

WGBH (FM) WGBH (89.7 MHz; branded as GBH without the " W" since August 31, 2020) is a public radio station located in Boston, Massachusetts. WGBH is a member station of National Public Radio (NPR) and affiliate of Public Radio Exchange (PRX), which me ...

WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), branded on-air as GBH or GBH 2 since 2020, is the primary PBS member television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship property of the WGBH Educational Foundation, which also owns Boston's sec ...

take their call letters from Great Blue Hill, which was the original location of the station's FM and TV transmitters. WGBH (FM) still transmits from the site, grandfathered at an effective radiated power of 98,000 watts. WGBH-TV moved its antenna to a taller tower in Needham in the 1960s.
URL last accessed November 23, 2009.

WZRM WZRM (97.7 FM, ''Rumba 97.7'') is a radio station in the Boston, Massachusetts market licensed to Brockton, Massachusetts, carrying a Spanish CHR radio format. Owned and operated by iHeartMedia, it serves the Metro Boston and South Shore area ...

, an FM station licensed to Brockton, moved its transmitter northward from near Brockton to Great Blue Hill in 2005 to better serve Boston. The

NOAA Weather Radio NOAA Weather Radio NWR; also known as NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards is an automated 24-hour network of VHF FM weather radio stations in the United States (U.S.) that broadcast weather information directly from a nearby National Weather Serv ...

station serving

and adjacent coastal waters, KHB35, transmits atop the hill as well. In 1980, the hill was the subject of a prank by

WNAC-TV WNAC-TV (channel 64), branded on-air as Fox Providence, is a television station in Providence, Rhode Island, United States, affiliated with Fox and The CW. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) ...

's news department, where it was alleged that a volcano was erupting. Great Blue Hill and the

is the last remaining area in

where the

timber rattlesnake The timber rattlesnake, canebrake rattlesnake, or banded rattlesnake (''Crotalus horridus'') Wright AH, Wright AA (1957). ''Handbook of Snakes of the United States and Canada''. Ithaca and London: Comstock Publishing Associates, a division of ...

and

copperhead Copperhead may refer to: Snakes * ''Agkistrodon contortrix'', or copperhead, a venomous pit viper species found in parts of North America * '' Austrelaps'', or Australian copperhead, a genus of venomous elapids found in southern Australia and Ta ...

can be found. The snakes are so rare in the state that they are rarely encountered by people. They are both considered endangered, making it illegal to harass, kill, collect, or possess.

Gallery

File:Brookwood Farm MA 01.jpg, The hill from Brookwood Farm File:Great Blue Hill Weather Station Milton MA 01.jpg, The weather observatory File:Eliot Tower Milton MA 03.jpg, Eliot Memorial Bridge and Tower File:South Bay Interchange.jpg, The South Bay interchange (looking south) to the Southeast Expressway with Great Blue Hill visible in the background File:2012 07 21 great-blue-hill 28 (43254623450).jpg, Radio transmitter of

References

External links

Blue Hills Reservation
information from the Commonwealth's Department of Conservation and Recreation

technical data from mountainsummits.com
Blue Hills Ski Area
Official site * Th
Blue Hill Observatory
homepage

a history of the observatory
Friends of the Blue Hills
a community preservation group
The Eruption of Mt. Milton, April Fool's Day, 1980
{{Mountains of Massachusetts Mountains of Massachusetts Landforms of Norfolk County, Massachusetts Extinct volcanoes