Travel in Time with Dan: The River Beneath Hartford—Managing What You Cannot Eliminate
Hey everybody, how are you doing? It’s Dan Blanchard here with another edition of Travel in Time with Dan, where we mix travel with history, with leadership, and… of course… with me, Dan Blanchard!
Today, we are standing in Bushnell Park in the heart of downtown Hartford, Connecticut. Above us, the State Capitol dome gleams. Commuters and visitors walk the paths without a second thought. Yet directly beneath our feet, sealed in concrete and darkness, a full river still flows—the Park River. Tens of thousands of people cross over it every day and never know it is there.
I’ve traveled back in time to the late 1930s to speak with the man who led Hartford through two of the most devastating floods in its history: Mayor Thomas J. Spellacy. He is standing with me near the Ford Street Bridge, one of the last visible reminders of the river that once ran openly through this park.
Here is our fictional conversation.
The Interview: Dan Blanchard Meets Mayor Thomas J. Spellacy
Dan Blanchard: Mayor Spellacy! Dan Blanchard here from Travel in Time with Dan. Thank you for meeting me in Bushnell Park. Most people walking these paths today have no idea a river still runs right under their feet.
Thomas J. Spellacy: (Looking out across the park with the weight of a man who has seen the city underwater) Mr. Blanchard. This ground has a long memory. The river beneath us has worn three names in its lifetime. The Dutch called it the Little River when they first saw this fertile place in the 1630s and said the land and the water were good. By the time Thomas Hooker and the English settlers were established, industry, tanneries, hog farms, and sewage had turned it foul. People started calling it the Hog River. And the name fit. Then Horace Bushnell came along in the mid-1800s. He cleaned it up, rebranded it the Park River, and centered the first municipally funded public park in the United States right around it. Bushnell Park became the green front door to what was then one of the richest cities in the world.
Dan: Bushnell solved the pollution problem and created a beautiful civic space. But he didn’t solve the deeper problem… the geography.
Thomas J. Spellacy: Exactly. The Park River sits lower than the Connecticut River. When the big river rises, the water has nowhere to go but backward… downhill into the Park River and straight into the heart of downtown. We learned that lesson the hard way in 1936, and then again, far worse, in 1938.
Dan: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938. What was it like in the city?
Thomas J. Spellacy: (Voice tightening at the memory) Downtown Hartford became a lagoon. People moved through the streets in rowboats instead of cars. Water climbed the faces of buildings and left high-water marks that still show on some of the stone today. Lives were lost. Thousands were displaced. The damage ran into the hundreds of millions. After the second catastrophe in three years, it was clear we could no longer live with an open, unpredictable river winding through the commercial core of the city. Incremental fixes were not enough.
Dan: So, the decision was made to bury it.
Thomas J. Spellacy: In 1940, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began one of the boldest urban engineering projects this country had seen… a roughly $100 million effort to entomb the Park River in massive concrete conduits and build the modern city on top of it. We could not stop the rain. We could not lower the Connecticut River. We could not change the fundamental elevation problem. So, we stopped trying to fight the water on the surface and instead contained it beneath our feet.
Dan: The river is still here. The long pond in Bushnell Park follows the old serpentine path. The Ford Street Bridge… the last of the five original bridges that once crossed the open river… still stands. Upstream, stretches of the river remain visible near the University of Hartford, the Mark Twain House, and Hartford Public High School before it disappears underground into a concrete cavern forty-five feet wide and thirty feet tall that runs for miles beneath the city.
Thomas J. Spellacy: The river was never eliminated. It was managed. That distinction matters. We accepted what we could not control and invested heavily in a structural solution that would protect public health, property, and the economic future of Hartford. The cost was enormous. The alternative… living with repeated, catastrophic flooding… was worse.
Dan: Standing here with you, the leadership lesson feels clear. You cannot always eliminate a problem. You cannot stop every storm or rewrite geography. But you can change how you manage it. Hartford stopped trying to keep the river on the surface and instead built a permanent conduit underneath the city.
Thomas J. Spellacy: That is the heart of it, Mr. Blanchard. Leaders who insist on eliminating every difficulty will exhaust themselves and their communities. Leaders who have the courage to acknowledge what cannot be stopped… and then pour resources into containing and redirecting the threat… give their people a chance to thrive. We built a city over a river. In doing so, we turned an active hazard into a quiet, controlled force that no longer drowns the streets.
Dan: Boom. That lands with real weight. Mayor Spellacy, thank you for your time and for walking me through both the history and the hard decision that shaped modern Hartford.
Thomas J. Spellacy: When you walk these paths, Mr. Blanchard, remember what flows beneath them. The river is still working. So is the lesson. Manage what you cannot eliminate… and invest in solutions that last.
The Travel in Time Wrap-Up
Standing in Bushnell Park with Mayor Thomas J. Spellacy made one leadership truth stand out clearly: You cannot always eliminate a problem, but you can change how you manage it.
The waterway beneath Hartford began as the Little River, became the polluted Hog River, and was cleaned and rebranded as the Park River by Horace Bushnell when he created the nation’s first municipally funded public park. Yet the geography never changed. Because the Park River sits lower than the Connecticut River, major floods… especially the Great New England Hurricane of 1938… sent water surging backward into downtown, turning streets into canals and leaving high-water marks that can still be seen on buildings today. After the devastation of the 1930s, Hartford and the Army Corps of Engineers chose a bold structural answer: a roughly $100 million project to bury the river in massive concrete conduits and build the modern city on top of it.
The river was never removed. It was contained. Traces remain above ground… the winding pond in Bushnell Park, the surviving Ford Street Bridge, and open stretches farther west… while a vast subterranean channel continues to carry the water beneath the streets.
That decision offers a lasting framework for any leader facing forces that cannot be stopped: acknowledge what is uncontrollable, pivot from elimination to management, and invest in long-term structural solutions. Sometimes the wisest move is not to keep fighting the storm on the surface, but to build a durable conduit that lets the threat pass safely underneath everything you are trying to protect.
So, what recurring problem in your work or community cannot be eliminated—no matter how hard you fight it? And what bold, structural change would allow you to manage it instead?
Until next time, this is Dan Blanchard with the Travel in Time with Dan show… where we mix travel with history, leadership, and me! Take care, and have a wonderful day!
Enjoyed this journey into the river beneath Hartford? Don’t forget to check out our companion book chapters, YouTube videos, and podcasts to keep uncovering history and inspiring leadership!
Uncovering History. Inspiring Leadership.
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