Glendale Power House

Along the Housatonic River in Stockbridge, this 13.32-acre complex includes a 28-foot dam, a 1,500-foot power canal, a bulkhead, trash racks, control gates and a 200-foot iron penstock feeding a small stone power house. The 50 by 68 foot building has coursed random ashlar walls, much of the stone salvaged from the nearby Glendale Woolen Mill, a slate-shingled steel truss hip roof and a single large interior room for turbines and generators. Monument Mills, a cotton textile company downstream in Housatonic, bought the water rights in 1905 because low summer water limited its operations. Construction began that July under contractor J.R. Lee, and the plant was dedicated in January 1907. By 1909 it provided half of the mills' power, and it later supplied part of Stockbridge until closing in 1946. The equipment was scrapped around 1950, and a conservation group began restoring it as a hydroelectric and educational project.