Mine Falls Park
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Mine Falls Park (sometimes called Mines Falls) is a 325-acre (132 hectare) park in the city of Nashua, New Hampshire. Located in the heart of the city, it was purchased in 1969 from the Nashua New Hampshire Foundation with city and federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) money. It is bordered on the north by the Nashua River and on the south by the millpond and canal system.
Visitors from around New Hampshire and Massachusetts enjoy numerous recreational opportunities, such as walking, boating, fishing, cross-country skiing, and biking. The park also includes several fields for organized sports. The trails provide the city's only bicycle and pedestrian crossing of the Nashua River west of Main Street.
The park was once the property of the Nashua Manufacturing Company and was later acquired by Textron who sold it to the Nashua, New Hampshire Foundation (a group of local businessmen) in the 1940s.
The name "Mine Falls" dates from the 1700s, when low-quality lead was supposedly mined from the island below the falls. In the early 1800s the potential of the Nashua River to drive the wheels of the mills was recognized. Workers used shovels and mules to dig a three-mile long canal, which provides a vertical drop of 36 feet at the mills.
The Gatehouse near the falls was built in 1886, with the first gates being built in 1826.
In 1987, the Nashua River Canal and the Nashua Manufacturing Company Historic District (the Millyard) were placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1992, the park trails were designated part of the New Hampshire Heritage Trail system, which extends 130 miles along the Merrimack River from Massachusetts to Canada.
Mine Falls itself (on the Nashua River) is now the site of a small, privately-owned hydroelectric dam with a capacity of 5 megawatts.
