The Town of Hinsdale is a small, quiet hilltown, nestled in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Its population of over 1,900 increases tremendously in the summer months due to the influx of people from more urban areas coming to enjoy the peaceful, wooded hills, lakes and fresh air. Settled in the 1760s, Hinsdale was incorporated in 1804. Its early history saw farms and saw mills as the primary sources of occupation.
In the late 1800s, textile mills flourished, and the community found itself able to install a reservoir and public water an sewer systems. In the early 1900s, the mills departed, and the railroad became the main industry. By the mid-1900s, this industry departed, as well. The Town is now primarily a bedroom community to the city of Pittsfield, and is finding it difficult to maintain the infrastructure which was established in a much more affluent time.
The Town encompasses approximately 21.7 square miles. It is home to two lakes, Lake Ashmere and Plunkett Lake, which provide recreational opportunities to residents and five summer camps for children, and to a section of Muddy Pond, the headwaters of the East Branch of the Housatonic River. Hinsdale also is home, along with neighboring communities of Peru, Washington and Dalton, to the 14,500 acre Hinsdale Flats Watershed Resource Area, designated on January 31, 1992 as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern.
The Appalachian Trail, a national scenic trail, passes through Hinsdale, and encompasses 440 acres. There are over 1500 acres of state-owned open space within the Town's borders, as well. Hinsdale offers an extensive recreation program for its youth, and a community center and activities for its senior citizens. It is a beautiful, rural community, in which its residents take great pride.
