Today's two-mile trek takes me from the IHOP in Brighton to the Main Street Mobil station in Watertown, Massachusetts.
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| IHOP to Main Street Mobil |
This walk takes me along the Charles River for a ways, going past the Watertown Arsenal, built in 1816 for the storage of military ordnance.
Over the years the Arsenal's purpose changed from storage to manufacturing of munitions. It stopped most operations in 1968 and was closed in 1985, the buildings eventually converted to civilian use. You can read about those uses at this website: Arsenal on the Charles. For a while it was on the Superfund list as needing environmental cleanup. During the Civil War, the Arsenal's Commander had a magnificent mansion built. That building is still relatively intact, and you can now rent the Commander's Mansion for weddings and meetings.
Another historic site along US-20 is the Perkins School for the Blind, the first school for the blind in the U.S. It was started in Boston in 1832 and slowly grew over the decades, adding students, buildings and curricula. It moved within Boston several times before settling in Watertown at its current location. These days it's an international school that has many resources for helping blind and deaf-blind students. Probably its most famous student was Helen Keller. Below is an image of the Howe building, or as the school's website puts it, "the historical heart of campus, . . . named for the school's first director, Samuel Gridley Howe."
Continuing on, I pass by Saltonstall Park, a neighborhood park used for recreation and occasional local events.
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Saltonstall Park
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Well, I'm finally at the Main Street Mobil Station, where I'll end my trek for today.
Looking forward to tomorrow's exploration and another two hours of guitar practice!
