Official website of the Bridge of Flowers

by Elaine Parmett, Bridge of Flowers Committee

In a letter to a local newspaper, Shelburne resident Clara S. C. Barnard recalled how the late Antoinette Burnham (Mrs. Walter E. Burnham) first had the idea of transforming the old trolley bridge into a bridge of beauty. Barnard insisted that Mrs. Burham told her how the thought came to [Antoinette] one day when she was occupied with household duties. She was more than busy in those days, striving to care for her family, because her husband had become an invalid. Busy as she was, she went to the doorway of her husband’s room and mentioned the idea to him.” According to Barnard, Mr. Burnham typed out an article, which developed the idea.

Antoinette Burnham had the vision to take a community problem of a discontinued trolley bridge and turn into a beautiful Bridge of Flowers. According to The History and Traditions of Shelburne, Massachusetts published in 1958, the trolley bridge was an "eyesore." It was too expensive to destroy, yet it was not needed as a footbridge." It could not be destroyed partly because of expense and because it carried the water main to the Buckland side of the river. The Shelburne Falls Fire District purchased the bridge for $1,250.

The Shelburne Falls Woman’s Club sponsored this project in 1928. In April 1929, 80 loads of loam and several loads of fertilizer were put on the bridge, all by donated labor. The Woman’s club and other organizations in town raised $1,000 in the early spring of 1929.

1929

1978