The Tower Above the Valley
- David Bourcier
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
There was a time when the very top of Wilbraham Mountain held a wonder, an unlikely beacon of timber and imagination that drew visitors from miles around. At 801 Ridge Road, where the wind still sweeps clean across the ridge, John Poteri once built a tower meant not only to rise above the treetops but to lift the spirit as well.
Poteri dreamed of a structure that would bring people to the mountain to see the world as he saw it. In 1930, he hired an architect from Springfield to design a building inspired by the bell towers of England, graceful, tall, and commanding. What emerged was an 80-foot wooden lookout tower with a restaurant tucked within, the High Tower Sandwich Kitchen, perched on the crest of Wilbraham Mountain as though it had grown there.
On a clear day, the view was nearly unbelievable. From the top platform, one could trace the silver ribbon of the Connecticut River as it wound toward Hartford, where the dome of the State House gleamed faintly in the distance. Springfield lay spread out below like a painted map. Beyond it rose Mount Tom and the Holyoke Range, standing guard over the Valley. To the northeast, the eye could travel across Brimfield’s hills and all the way to the City of Worcester. Even the air seemed different up there, thinner, and cleaner.
As the years passed, the restaurant took on the gentler name of the Tea Room. It became a place where hikers, Sunday drivers, and curious travelers could rest over a light meal, enjoying the mountain breezes and the sensation of being suspended between earth and sky. Its charm endured into the late 1940s, when the Tea Room finally closed, leaving the tower to stand quietly above the Valley it had once entertained.
The tower made history on May 13, 1934. Long before its doors closed, it became an essential link in the first successful five-meter ham radio relay between Boston and New York City. Operators had tried twice before and failed, but the elevation of Wilbraham Mountain provided the perfect advantage. The signal leapt from ridge to ridge, and on that Sunday morning, a new chapter in radio communication was written, from a wooden tower atop our own mountain.
The end came suddenly. On June 17, 1954, fire swept through the structure with terrifying speed. Flames climbed the tower like a ladder, reaching high into the sky, casting a fiery spectacle visible from miles around. Residents across the Valley saw the glow and wondered what could burn so fiercely on the mountain. The cause, investigators later said, was an electrical overload while shortwave radio equipment was being used inside.
By the end of the day, the tower was gone.
Today, only the memory remains, yet it is a memory that endures. The tower may no longer stand above Wilbraham Mountain, but the stories linger: of quiet afternoons in the Tea Room, of radio pioneers chasing distant signals, of a view so wide it seemed you could look straight into tomorrow. And in those stories, the tower still rises, tall as ever, against the endless New England sky.
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