There is a special summer community on the top of Mount Riga in Salisbury, to which families return year after year. Today, private summer cabins without electricity, wired phone service, or cable serve some 40 families. However, it once was a much larger community with a thriving industry. In the early 1800s, the Mount Riga community boasted a general store with four clerks, a school with as many as 110 students and a community ballroom in the iron master’s house.
The community traces its origin to the iron-smelting industry. The location provided two key elements for iron making: forests for charcoal and fast-flowing streams for energy. Such was their value that it proved more practical and economical to bring ore up the long, steep mountain road in saddlebags and ox carts than to bring the charcoal down.
The first European inhabitants were colliers, men who cut wood and charred it to make charcoal for local iron furnaces and forges. Abner and Peter Woodin built the first forge at the outlet of South Pond in 1781. The mountain lake was dammed for waterpower. A cold blast furnace was built and put into operation in 1810. Local lore has it that the Mount Riga furnace was the source for anchors on the legendary U.S. warship USS Constitution (Old Ironsides). The furnace stack, rebuilt multiple times, is only one of seven still standing from among the 40 blast furnaces that once lit the skies of the Upper Housatonic Valley.
The old growth forests were depleted by the 1850s, and the furnace went out of blast in 1856. Families moved off the mountain for new opportunities. Over time, much of the area was reclaimed by nature and later acquired by a group of local families who organized Mount Riga, Inc. They have a strong sense of conservation management to ensure preservation of this wilderness plateau which remains a hidden gem.
Over Labor Day weekend this year, the families gathered at the old furnace for an end-of-summer celebration of the 100th anniversary of incorporation. After Labor Day, the cabins are closed for winter, and families head down the mountain until their return the next summer.
Ken Suydam and family, 1896. Photo from Salisbury Association Historical Society Photo Archives
Ice fishing on Mount Riga, 1925: David Jones (on the left), mountain guide and camp cook. The other man is believed to be Anson Williams. Photo from Salisbury Association Historical Society Photo Archives
Lotos Lodge and members of the Warner family. Photo from Salisbury Association Historical Society Photo Archives
Mame Conklin’s camp on Mount Riga, 1898. Photo from Salisbury Association Historical Society Photo Archives
