Flashback Photo: Quinnipiac River, Connecticut, 1907

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This vintage postcard view of the Quinnipiac River was taken in 1907 from Wallingford, Conn. ‘Quinnipiac’ comes from an Algonquian phrase meaning ‘long water land,’  and the river flows from the Dead River Swamp near New Britain to the Long Island Sound in New Haven. It was terribly polluted during the 19th and 20th centuries because of the industry along its banks. In 1886, the Connecticut Legislature passed the state’s first-ever pollution control measure to try to clean up the Quinnipiac. It banned the City of Meriden from discharging sewage into the river.

We thought a springlike scene would be a welcome sight for winter-weary eyes!