Lake Size: 38.6 mi² (99.97 km)
Shoreline Length (Miles): 181 mi (189.9 km)
Deepest Depth: 150 ft (46 m)
Latitude: 42.359167
Longitude: -72.3
Lake Level Above Sea Level: 522 ft (159 m)

Information: Before the reservoir’s construction, there was a hill in Enfield called Quabbin Hill and a lake in Greenwich called Quabbin Lake. Named for a Native American chief called Nani-Quaben, meaning place of many waters, these became the basis for naming the new reservoir. The Quabbin was formed by inundating the Swift River Valley, a drainage basin lying entirely within the state, by damming the river and a col, through which Beaver Brook would have otherwise provided another outlet for its water. When construction began in 1936 the Swift River was redirected from its riverbed through a diversion tunnel. On August 14, 1939 that tunnel was sealed with rock. Over the next seven years the waters of the Quabbin Reservoir slowly rose behind the newly completed Winsor Dam, an earth-filled structure 2,640 feet long, rising 170 feet above the riverbed, and the slightly smaller Goodnough Dike. The water gradually submerged the roads that had linked the towns. It swallowed all but the peaks of about sixty hills and mountains, transforming Prescott Ridge into Prescott Peninsula.