Wistariahurst in Bloom

Bruce Barone has a photography exhibit up at the Wistariahurst Museum and was photographing residents of Holyoke today and displaying prints in the gallery space. Some of the images from the exhibit can be seen here.

The Wistariahurst was in full bloom with wistaria blossoms, from whence it gets its name.



If you've never been there and are going to be in the Pioneer Valley, you should make plans to stop and see it. It was the home of William Skinner and his family, owners of a large silk mill.



The heirs gave Wistariahurst to the City of Holyoke in 1959 and it has been an historical museum since.



The main, semi-circular drive above is constructed entirely of local mudstone, which is the fossilized remnant of an ancient lake shore. Nearly every stone has ripple marks and quite a number of them have footprints of Eubrontes, the name given for classification of the unknown dinosaur that made the tracks and other related species.



Some think that they may have been created by Dilophosaurus. You can see more of the fossils at Dinosaur Footprints, a small park on the western bank of the Connecticut River between Holyoke and Northampton.

So where was I going with all of this? Oh yeah... we got our portrait taken.