Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Stone Tower, Lynn


I love Lynn Woods. Since I  "discovered" the place a year ago, I've been visiting there multiple times. People I meet on the trail are very friendly. Each time I greet them, they show me a genuine smile and throw some conversations. It has a good vibe, my kind of good vibe.

Walden Pond

Lynn Wood Reservation was founded in 1881. The 2,200 acre (9 km2) of woodland is dotted with lots of rocks and boulders; the most famous one would be Dungeon Rock. I will cover the rock in a later post. So stay tuned.

Rocks, rocks, rocks...

I love Lynn Woods not only because of the funky atmosphere filled with rocks and boulders. If you visit any reservations in Massachusetts, you'll likely come across a stone tower built by the WPA during the 30's. Yes, the job creation tower, I'd say. Lynn Woods is no exception.

I've been rather obsessively covering those towers in my blog, and the tower I'm going to introduce today is the third tower in the Lynn-Melrose-Medford area; finally the WPA stone tower triangle has completed.

Then today's tower:

Burrill Stone Tower, Lynn

I have to say every WPA tower is made equal, but personally, this is the handsomest one. (Am I stirring up a controversy?) It looks like a pencil shaped medieval dungeon tower!

This 48 ft (15m) tall stone tower was created by the WPA masons in 1936 to watch out for fire. It sits on the 285 ft  (87m) high Burrill Hill, the highest point in Lynn.


I was informed by a reader that the tower was recently refurbished, hoping to climb up the tower to the top. My expectation was very high; I was so exited that I began to regard Lynn Woods as the theme park for rocks, the mineral one, and the tower as the anchoring castle of the theme park.

Thank you Mr. & Mrs. Richardson for restoring my favorite tower!

I reached the top of Burrill hill, and went up the entrance stairs leading to the tower gate. Alas, it was closed, locked! I later learned that the tower was available by appointment only. I have to confess, I am too lazy to plan even a few days ahead.


At least, I tried to peek through the heavy iron gate to see the interior; it did look like it's in a great shape. How do I know? Look at the photo I took a year ago:

Watch out for...what? Aim the head?!

Why are kids nowadays obsessed with zombies? If you have a time to manifest your apathy towards the society we are in by doodling onto my favorite tower, why don't you stack some stone? Like building a mini Stone Tower or something. Or wait, they might really see zombies, leaving me a valuable tip for combating them?


Check out another fabulous tower in Lynn: High Rock Tower and Stone Cottage, Lynn

Locate Stone Tower, Lynn @ Google Map

Friends of Lynn Woods: http://www.flw.org/landmarks.html#stone_tower
Trail map, Friends of Lynn Woods (pdf): http://www.flw.org/pdf_files/lwmap.pdf
Burrill Stone Tower, MACRIS: http://mhc-macris.net/Details.aspx?MhcId=LYN.976

1 comment:

  1. My wife and I were in it last summer. Someone must have forgotten to lock it that day. Fantastic view from the top. I wish they'd refurbish Steel Tower (visible from Stone Tower and not far away).

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