beartown

Updated: May 7, 2025

But the back roads of Berkshire are known to few, and you may tramp all the morning over the Beartown Mountain plateau, by a road where the green grass grows between the ruts, without meeting a motor, or indeed, a vehicle of any sort. A century ago Beartown was a thriving community, producing many thousand dollars' worth of grain, maple sugar, wool, and mutton.

- Modern American Prose Selections

Factories and cities have swallowed up a whole population, indeed, along the Beartown road. It is easy to say that they went willingly, that they preferred the life of cities; that the dreary tenement under factory grime, with a "movie" theatre around the corner, is an acceptable substitute to them for the ample fireplaces, the fanlight door, the rolling fields and roadside brook.

- Modern American Prose Selections