Early adventures on land FCI gave Danbury

There were no fence or signs, just a dirt maintenance road separating the prison and the reservation land. We walked across the road and hiked up steep ledges to get to the top of Bear Mountain.

In the booming city of Danbury, occupied by 90,000 people from countries around the world, open space has become a vanishing commodity.

In 1940 the Federal Correctional Institution prison with low security was build on land known as Bear Mountain. Southern New England natives liked to call their hills mountains. Vermont and New Hampshire have real mountains, 4,000- to 6,000feet high. The federal Bureau of Prisons found they had bought extra land so they gave 140 acres to the city of Danbury, stipulating it should be used for open space. It was called Bear Mountain Reservation. The west side of the land bordered on Candlewood Lake. The FCI built a nice, cozy beach with cement barbecues and scenic stone walls where the staff and their families could enjoy summer weekends.

It was maintained by the prisoners. Working on the stone walls one day, they revolted. “This is hard work. We were not incarcerated to work on stone walls!” they said. The FCI had to hire professional masons.

Back in the 1950s we hiked down the Bear Mountain trail to the lake followed by some curious, huge pileated woodpeckers. There were no fence or signs, just a dirt maintenance road separating the prison and the reservation land. We walked across the road and hiked up steep ledges to get to the top of Bear Mountain. We inspected a big walk-in bear cave. At the mountain top we had a commanding view of Candlewood Lake.

Then we heard the gunfire. The guards had an outdoor firing range in a gravel bank. A vernal pool and marshy wetland formed from a natural spring. The fresh water then flowed as a bushbordered brook down the hill emptying into the lake next to the beach. In the brook we saw pretty red speckled trout. The guards had carelessly dumped some empty chemical 55-gallon drums at the edge of the marshland.

Later we tested the brook water to check on possible chemicals leaching into the lake. Re-crossing the road, we met the guard in a pickup truck. He warned us to stay on our city property adding, “Don’t tell me, I know you somehow lost your sense of direction and your compass.”

That was security in the old days. We talked with prisoners who were maintaining the grounds. They were eager to tell about their narcotic activities, which eventually led to buying and selling and breaking the laws. Some of them were getting an education in the well-stocked library hosted by a full-time, paid, civilian librarian. One of the members of my tennis club academy in Danbury devoted volunteer hours to tutor some prisoners in mathematics.

Back in the 1970s the city bought open space that was formerly the Dryska Farm off South King Street in back of the King Street School. They erected a water tower for a reserve supply controlled by the water department. Trails were built where the natives walked with their dogs past a beautiful, secluded vernal pool where they could watch the salamanders travel from the forest to the pool for their springtime mating ritual.