Cascades Park, Worcester, Massachusetts

Water cascading down over mossy rocks in Cascades Park

During the last Ice Age—known as the Wisconsin glaciation stated to have occurred between 77,000 to 15,000 years ago—glaciers in eastern North America extended as far south as as modern-day New England and beyond. When the glaciers receded they sculpted the landscape. At today's Cascade Park in northwest Worcester, glacial movement formed the cataract bed with a boulder field at its crest. 

At the bottom of the cataract an interpretive board summarizes the location history:

Worcester's Cascade Park was founded in 1926 when the roughly thirty-four acre Newton Farm along Cataract Street was donated to the City by Benjamin Newton. The new park's most notable feature was the Cascades Waterfall - 300 feet long and more than 100 feet high - formed during the last Ice Age when the Wisconsin glacier scooped out the softer bedrock of the eastern side of [what now is] the park. The park was expanded in the mid-1900s through the city's purchase of adjoining land to the north. That land was initially targeted for use as a municipal landfill; a plan quickly abandoned in the face of strong citizen opposition.

 

Cascades Park, along with its Cascades West expansion and Boynton Park, are scenic and recreational highlights around the northwest trailhead of the East-West Trail—a 14-mile, cross-city trail connecting 20 park and green spaces across the hills of Worcester. Cascades Park includes the Cascades Trail, Newton Trail and Holden Trail. The trails are well-marked.

 

The water of the falls is cascading into Cook's Pond, located east of Olean Street. You can walk around much of the pond.

Maps

East-West Trail, Western Section, Worcester, MA: http://www.hikeworcester.com/MAPSpdf/EW_West.pdf.

The Cascades Trail System: https://www.gwlt.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Cascades-Trail-System.pdf. 

Cook's Pond: http://www.gwlt.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Cooks-Pond.pdf.

Map of Cascades Park posted at trailhead in Boynton Park

Cascades Brook with Cataract Street bridge

Off Cascades Trail: a cleft-rock path