The Dugway

The Dugway is the stretch of Route 44 between the Mobil station in Pine Meadow, opposite Wicket Street, and the Dunkin Donuts. This short piece of road was created when the railroad tracks were put in during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Its name is, of course, a very literal one; in order to create it the hill was cut away and flattened. Today the embankments, the railroad alignment, and the retaining wall that drops into the Farmington River stand as testimony to the manmade nature of this section.
Prior to the railroads, the main highway was the Farmington River Turnpike on the other side of the river, crossing at a ford between the current Rt. 219 bridge and the Town Hall. The south side did have a road, but it was higher up the hill; possibily an extension of High Street and Fairview Avenue. This was one of the original proprieters’ roads and ran along the side of the hill between Town Hill and the Satan’s Kingdom road.
In the early period, pre-1800, the North center of town (now the town center) barely existed, except as a ford. In the same period, Pine Meadow was known as Kelloggsville and was a small agricultural center, taking advantage of the wide floodplain that exists below the current Route 219 bridge. For Pine Meadow inhabitants, if they chose to go the center of town (Town Hill) it was no slower to start climbing the hill in Pine Meadow. It was only when industry began to grow that a direct route between Pine Meadow and the North Village became mandatory, hence the Dugway.