Solving The Frog Bridge Mystery

The picture above is a gigantic frog on a spool of thread that stands at one corner of a bridge spanning the Willimantic River in downtown Willimantic, Connecticut. There are identical frogs on the other three corners as well, each one costing a cool fifty-grand. It’s a newer bridge; it officially opened back in 2000. I’ve always wondered what the story was with those frogs. I had some extra time this afternoon so I stopped by the local library and spent a good thirty minutes researching it in an encyclopedia I found. 

One night back in 1754 the good people of Willimantic awoke to a terrible noise. I mean EVERYONE woke up, that’s how loud it was. Some folks ran into the streets carrying muskets, others prayed and a few probably ran around shouting, “Oh my God, the Russians have arrived!” The source of their rude awakening could not be determined. After the chaos had died down, everyone went home and back to bed, except for a few who saw no point in trying for more sleep. Those folks were simply too wound up and traveled to the center of town to grab a cup of coffee at the local Dunkin’ Donuts while they speculated about what just went down.

The following morning it was determined what the ruckus was from. At the time, the local area was in the midst of a severe drought and as such the river had about run dry. There were dead bullfrogs all over the ****** place. Apparently the frogs had “gone to war” over what little water remained. The resulting fight is what woke up the entire town population, much to their chagrin. This event became known as “The Battle of The Frogs.”

Willimantic, back in the day, was huge in the mill business. The town is known as “Thread City” because of it. That is the much simpler story of why the frogs sit where they do. 

When the bridge was in the infancy of its design phase, the present-day townsfolk totally freaked out over its blandness. The original design was much too blah for their charismatic little village. The uproar was so outrageous that the DOT relented and hired an architect (the only time that’s EVER happened.) The architects were tasked with spicing up the design of the bridge, and what we see today is the end result of their work.

Next time I cross that bridge, I will not have to wonder why those frogs are there. Instead, I can go straight to the Dunkin’ Donuts in the center of town, buy a coffee and wonder what it must have been like to be woken up in the middle of my slumber by frogs engaged in battle hundreds of years ago. Thank goodness for encyclopedias and libraries. Together they have solved a great mystery for me today.