Skip to main content

Frog Bridge - Willimantic, Connecticut

 


One of the more unusual sights while traveling the highways and byways of eastern Connecticut is the Frog Bridge, which spans across the Willimantic River between downtown Willimantic and neighboring Windham. Known officially as the Thread City Crossing and South Street, the Frog Bridge is 476 feet in length and connects CT 32 on the north side of the river with CT 66 on the south side of the river. The bridge was built in the year 2000 at the cost of $13 million to replace a stone arch bridge built in 1857 called the Windham Road Bridge (now a pedestrian bridge known as Garden on the Bridge) located at the Windham Mills State Heritage Park.

While the Frog Bridge is mostly a nondescript looking bridge, there are frogs sitting on tops of spools of thread on each side of the bridge. In 1986, Connecticut state legislator John Lescoe introduced a bill to fund a feasibility study for a new bridge over the Willimantic River between Willimantic and other parts of Windham. After a recession in the late 1980s, the funding for the new bridge was approved in 1991. Connecticut Department of Transportation engineers presented a design for the bridge, which residents disparaged as bland. The residents desired for something with more character for its new signature bridge, much like the famous Merritt Parkway bridges in Fairfield County, Connecticut.

After pressure from historians and residents, the state relented and added an architect to the bridge budget, which is not usually done. When plans were drawn up to build the bridge, it was decided that the bridge should one that would spark pride in the town and speak of its unique history. Since Willimantic has a long history in the textile industry and is nicknamed the Thread City, it made sense to incorporate spools of thread at each end of the bridge. The frogs symbolize a specific event in Windham's history. Sculpted by Leo Jensen of Ivoryton, Connecticut, the brass frogs are 11 feet tall and sit on top of the four huge spools, costing $50,000 each. The frogs even have names, which are Manny, Willy, Windy and Swifty. One can that the frogs are named for Mansfield, Willimantic, Windham, and for an Algonquin word meaning "land of the swift running water". In 2002, the Federal Highway Administration awarded the Frog Bridge an Honorable Mention for Excellence in Highway Design, in the category of Historic Preservation.

You may be asking yourself, what is the deal with the frogs? Willimantic is known as being home of the infamous "Battle of the Frogs" in 1754. During these early days of the French and Indian War, Windham’s Colonel Eliphalet Dyer raised a local regiment to fight in the war. Those who remained behind felt vulnerable to attack. Their worst fears seemed realized during a steamy, hot June night when unearthly screams emanated from the darkness by a shrieking, clattering thunderous roar unlike anything they had ever heard before. Thinking that it was an Indian attack, the valiant villagers brandished their muskets and fired blindly into the night. Some believed that Judgment Day had arrived and prayed. Others panicked and hid under their beds. Some cooler heads finally prevailed and went in search of the ungodly noises, but to no avail.

Only when the sun rose the next morning did things quiet down and the townspeople find the source of the horrendous cacaphony. They looked to a nearby pond a couple miles east of town, down to no more than a puddle thanks to the a longstanding drought that resulted in a dry summer, was ringed with scores of dead bullfrogs littering the landscape. Apparently, some sort of frog turf war had broken out and the carnage was excessive, to put in mildly. Every frog for miles around had descended on the Windham area in a desperate search for water. The jostling and battling of these frogs, and their struggle to gain access to the pond's only remaining water had been the source of the previous night's unearthly din. To commemorate the Great Windham Frog Fight of 1754, that pond has been renamed as Frog Pond.

In the years since, the event has been commemorated by tales, songs, and decorative traditions, including a frog being included on the seal of the Town of Windham. At least three ballads were written about the Great Windham Frog Fight, while an 1888 operetta, The Frogs of Old Windham, drew audiences throughout Connecticut. After the American Revolution, the Windham Bank issued banknotes with an image of a frog standing over the body of another frog. In more recent years, frogs of the Frog Bridge were featured in Bill Griffith's Zippy the Pinhead comic and of course, in the sculptures of the giant green frogs that sit at both ends of the bridge.


A frog stands guard at the end of the Frog Bridge.

While the Frog Bridge was opened in September 2000, it was dedicated in May 2001.

Crossing south into Windham on the Frog Bridge. While the frogs are only found at the ends of the bridge, there are additional spools of thread found along the bridge.

Wider view of the Frog Bridge.

One of the frog sculptures sitting atop a spool of thread.

In pandemic times, the frogs were fitted with masks.

Going north on the Frog Bridge to downtown Willimantic.

One parting shot of the frogs of the Frog Bridge.


How to Get There:



Sources and Links:
CTMQ - Frog Bridge
Damned Connecticut - The Frog Bridge, Willimantic
Kurumi - Frog Bridge
ConnecticutHistory.org - Bridge Ornaments Help Tell the Legend of the Windham Frog Fight
Bridgehunter.com - Frog Bridge
Scenic USA - Connecticut - Frog Bridge
New England Historical Society - The Great Windham Frog Fight of 1754

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Chowchilla Mountain Road to Yosemite National Park

Chowchilla Mountain Road of Mariposa County is one of the oldest roadways servicing Yosemite National Park.  As presently configured this fourteen-mile highway begins at California State Route 49 near Elliot Corner and terminates at the Wawona Road in Yosemite National Park.  Chowchilla Mountain Road was constructed as a franchise toll road over Battalion Pass circa 1869-1870.  The highway was built at behest of Galen Clark to connect the town of Mariposa to his property near the South Fork Merced River at what is now Wawona.   In late 1874 the highway along with Clark’s Station would be purchased by the Washburn Brothers.  The Washburn Brothers would continue to toll Chowchilla Mountain Road as part of their Yosemite Stage Route lines.  The highway would ultimately become a Mariposa County public highway in 1917.  Mariposa would later be more directly linked with Yosemite Valley in 1926 following the completion of the Yosemite All-Year Highwa...

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l...

Angus L. Macdonald Bridge

At 1.3 kilometers (or about 0.84 miles) in length, the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge is one of two bridges crossing over the Halifax Harbour between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with the other bridge being the A. Murray Mackay Bridge . Opened in 1955 and named after former Nova Scotia Premier and Canadian Minister of Defense for Naval Services Angus L. Macdonald, the Macdonald Bridge was the first bridge that crossed Halifax Harbour that was opened to traffic. The Macdonald Bridge was also the subject of the Big Lift, which was only the second time in history that the span of a suspension bridge were replaced while the bridge was open to traffic. Planning began in 2010 for the Big Lift, while construction took place between 2015 and 2017. Similar work occurred on the Lion's Gate Bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia before the project took place on the Macdonald Bridge. At this time, much of the bridge infrastructure is new, leaving only the towers, main cables and...