INTRODUCTION

Continuous records of discharge from the 90 

streamflow-gaging stations in Massachusetts 

range from 1 to 100 years (Zarriello and Socolow, 

2003). March 31, 2004, marked the centennial 

anniversary of the continuous record of discharge 

from the Connecticut River at Montague City 

station (fig. 1). 

To commemorate this event, this Fact Sheet 

provides an overview of the history of the 

Montague City station, including a discussion of 

when it was built, how data were collected, the 

development of the station over the years, and the 

station as it is used today. It also briefly discusses 

how data from the station are used, and presents 

salient facts about the data collected at the station.

FIRST MEASUREMENTS

In March 1904, the USGS began data collection on the Connecticut River at Sunderland, 

Massachusetts, 9 miles downstream of the current 

station location in Montague City, when N.C. 

Grover of the USGS installed a staff gage on the 

highway bridge that spanned the river. Twice 

daily, John Lawer manually read the staff gage, 

essentially a ruler fixed to a permanent structure 

in the water body being measured, to determine 

the river’s stage, the elevation of the river’s 

surface relative to a fixed point.

In 1904, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began continuous streamflow measurements on the Connecticut 

River when it established a streamflow-gaging station near Montague City, Massachusetts. Since that time, the 

USGS has maintained a continuous record of streamflow of the Connecticut River at the Montague City station. 

From its rudimentary beginnings as a staff gage, to the satellite technology used today, the Montague City station 

has greatly evolved over its century of service. Researchers and resource managers have used data from this 

station for a variety of purposes, including monitoring the amount of water released from dams, assessing local 

and regional water quality, and collecting data related to tracking the movements of fish populations. From this 

first station grew the current (2004) network of 90 streamflow-gaging stations throughout Massachusetts, 72 

of which report real-time flow and water-level data to the World Wide Web. Today, water-resource managers 

from local, State, and Federal agencies, recreational enthusiasts, watershed associations, private corporations, 

and university scientists depend upon data from this network to make informed decisions about the use and 

stewardship of water resources in Massachusetts.

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey

USGS Fact Sheet FS–2004-3049

April 2004

Figure 1. Location of the Connecticut River streamflow-gaging station at Montague 

City, Massachusetts.

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A CENTURY OF SERVICE—100 YEARS OF CONTINUOUS 

STREAMFLOW-DATA COLLECTION ON THE CONNECTICUT 

RIVER, MONTAGUE CITY, MASSACHUSETTS 
Stage measurements provide only part of the information 

necessary for determining streamflow. Stream-discharge 

measurements are also needed to develop a relation between 

stage and flow. On April 12, 1904, S.K. Clapp made the first 

discharge measurement at the Sunderland station, recording a 

discharge of 55,000 cubic feet per second (Barrows and 

Hoyt, 1905).

The USGS collected stage data at Sunderland with the staff 

gage until October 1, 1917, when it installed a graphic recorder 

that continuously traced river stage. The recorder consisted 

of a pen moved by a float and counterweight, and a clock that 

advanced the graphic chart on which the pen traced the stage 

measurements. This recorder was used to record only lower 

stages. At higher stages, the observer still manually read the 

staff gage. Data from the Connecticut River were collected 

with these methods until October 8, 1921. On October 9, 1921, 

the USGS installed a new graphic recorder capable of recording 

all ranges of stage (Socolow and others, 2003). 

On September 21, 1929, H.B. Kinnison, the District 

Engineer for the USGS Boston office, received permission from 

the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company 

to begin construction of a new station on railroad property 

in the town of Montague. By October 30, 1929, G.K. Wood 

had completed construction and started operation of the new 

station (fig. 2) 9 miles upstream from the original station at 

Sunderland. The new station contained a graphic float-type 

recorder that recorded stage at all levels. About one-half mile 

below the station, Wood installed a cableway, a cable spanning 

the width of the river from which a car was suspended, allowing 

the USGS scientists to measure flow from a height safely 

above the river (fig. 3). To ensure that data from the Montague 

City station were accurate and comparable to data from the 

Sunderland station, the two stations operated concurrently until 

September 30, 1932. 

Because of its location on a steep bank that eroded during 

high flows, the Montague City station suffered structural 

damage. As early as 1942, station records indicate that the 

gage house was held upright by a cable attached from a tree 

to the top of the house (fig. 4). In 1985, the original structure 

was deemed unsafe and unfit for operation and subsequently 

abandoned. In that same year, a new station was built just 25 

feet upstream from the original house and about 5 feet farther 

back from the stream bank. Data collection in the new gage 

house began in the summer of 1985. Use of the cableway 

continued until May 1994, when it was abandoned as unsafe 

for operation. It was removed in 2003.

NEW TECHNOLOGY AND NEW METHODS

Today, the Montague City station contains some of the 

most sophisticated equipment used in stream gaging. Stage 

is recorded through an automated data-collection system that 

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Figure 4. The Montague City station under high water, April 6, 1960. 

Recorded stage was 37.50 feet. 

Current meter and

sounding weight

Figure 3. A discharge measurement being made from a cableway on 

the Connecticut River at Thompsonville, Connecticut, August 1939. 

Figure 2. The Montague City, Massachusetts, streamflow-gaging 

station, shortly after its construction in October 1929. 

Cables supporting gage house
Defining the Relation Between Stage and Discharge

The USGS presents streamflow information in two 

ways—river stage and discharge. River stage refers to 

the height of the water surface above a reference point 

set at the streamflow-gaging station. Stage refers only to 

the specific pool where the streamflow data are collected 

and not to the entire river. Most importantly, stage does 

not refer to water depth. River depth and discharge can 

change without corresponding changes in stage. A 

river can have more or less water flowing in it without a 

change in stage.

During periods of high flow, for example, a river 

bottom can scour or erode. If water erodes the rocks and 

sediment at the location where the river is measured, the 

channel becomes deeper and wider and the river has 

more flow, but the stage has not changed. The opposite 

can happen also. Stage can increase without an increase 

in flow. For instance, during drought conditions aquatic 

grasses might grow across the “control,” the downstream 

riffle or channel configuration that controls the stage of 

the gaged pool. The grasses may dam the water in the 

pool and force the stage to rise with no corresponding 

increase in flow. 

Discharge, typically measured in cubic feet per second 

(ft3/s), refers to the actual rate of water flowing through 

the river. By using discharge as a reference, data users 

can relate flow conditions at Montague City to other 

locations on the river.

 The USGS develops a mathematical relation between 

the river’s stage and the actual discharge measurements. 

This mathematical relation, called a rating, is used to 

determine discharges for all stages recorded at the 

station. Repeated discharge measurements are needed 

to verify the existing rating or define a new one, which 

is why the USGS continues to make discharge measurements at Montague City.

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consists of a nitrogen tank, electronic stage sensor and data 

recorder, and satellite transmitter. The nitrogen tank pumps 

a steady flow of nitrogen gas through a tube fixed to the river 

bottom. As the river’s stage changes, pressure inside the tube 

changes. A pressure transducer measures the pressure and 

converts it to stage, and a recorder digitally records the 

measurement. Stage measurements are made and recorded 

every 15 minutes. At 4-hour intervals, the data are transmitted 

to a satellite, which then sends updates to the USGS database, 

and ultimately to the World Wide Web. 

To assure that the relation between stage and discharge 

remains accurate, the USGS also manually measures discharge 

approximately three times each year, during low, medium, and 

high flows, at the Montague City station. Since abandonment of 

the cableway, all such measurements are now made from a boat. 

During low flows, measurements are made with a mechanical 

current meter, a device that looks like a wind meter. Medium 

and high-flow measurements are made with an acoustic doppler 

current profiler, a device that uses sound waves to measure 

water velocity.

Figure 5. Early 20th-century current meters and sounding weights of 

the type that would have been used to make velocity measurements at 

Montague City. The current meters featured a rotating-cup wheel that 

sent an electrical signal in the form of an audible click to a hydrographer, who counted and timed the clicks. From that information, the 

hydrographer calculated river velocity. Also shown is a cableoperated, water-sampling bottle.

The current rating curve and the first rating curve developed for the 

Connecticut River at Montague City station. Repeated discharge 

measurements are needed to verify an existing rating or to define a 

new one. This graph shows the discharge measurements used in 

the development of rating curve 1 and selected measurements used 

to develop rating curve 24. The 23 rating curves developed between 

1933 and 2002 have varied between these two curves. STAGE, IN FEET

5.00

10.00

13.00

23.00

33.00

43.00

53.00

100 1,000 10,000 100,000 250,000 

DISCHARGE, IN CUBIC FEET PER SECOND

RATING-CURVE 1 USED FROM OCTOBER 1, 1929, TO SEPTEMBER 30, 1933

RATING-CURVE 24 USED FROM OCTOBER 1, 2002, TO PRESENT

DISCHARGE MEASUREMENT
MANY USES, MANY USERS, MANY YEARS

Because it was close to the confluence of the Deerfield and 

Connecticut Rivers, the original station at Sunderland was 

probably installed to monitor flows from the Turners Falls 

Dam and from reservoirs on the Deerfield River. From this 

first station grew a network of streamflow-gaging stations 

throughout Massachusetts. Within 20 years of the start of data 

collection at Montague City, 12 other stations were installed on 

rivers throughout Massachusetts, including several stations on 

tributaries to the Connecticut River. Most likely, these stations 

were originally installed to monitor water supply for the many 

mill works and hydroelectric dams operating throughout 

Massachusetts.

Over the years, various constituencies have used data from 

the Montague City station. Currently, three agencies—the 

Massachusetts Water-Resources Authority, Holyoke Gas and 

Electric, and Pacific Gas and Electric National Energy Group— 

all have their own systems recording data at the Montague City 

station. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) 

uses data from the station to carry out its responsibilities set 

forth in the Clean Water Act, such as to calculate flow statistics 

for several dozen facilities permitted to discharge wastewater 

into the river under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (R. Abele, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 

written commun., 2003). The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 

Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, 

and the National Weather Service all depend upon data from 

Montague City as well. In addition to the basic streamflow data 

used to understand the quantity and timing of streamflow in the 

Connectiuct River, the USGS has used data from the station for 

assessments of water quality and has also installed equipment 

for tracking salmon movements.

REFERENCES CITED

Barrows, H.K., and Hoyt, J.C., 1905, Report of the progress of stream 

measurements for the calendar year 1904, Part I: U.S. Geological Survey 

Water-Supply and Irrigation Paper No. 124; Series P, Hydrographic 

Progress Reports, 29, p. 1-157.

Socolow, R.S., Girouard, G.G., and Ramsbey, L.R., 2003, Water Resources 

Data––Massachusetts and Rhode Island––Water Year 2002: U.S. 

Geological Survey Water-Data Report MA-RI-02-1, 339 p. 

U.S. Geological Survey, 2003, About the U.S. Geological Survey’s national 

streamflow information program, accessed March 23, 2004, at 

http://water.usgs.gov/nsip

FOR MORE INFORMATION

The Montague City station is one of over 7,000 streamflowgaging stations that the USGS maintains throughout the Nation. 

These stations are funded by a partnership with over 800 local, 

Federal, State, and tribal agencies (U.S. Geological Survey, 

2003). Funding for the Montague City station comes from a 

cooperative agreement between the USGS and the Massachusetts 

Department of Conservation and Recreation, Division of Water 

Supply Protection. 

Flow data from the Connecticut River at Montague City 

station and from 72 other stations throughout Massachusetts are 

provided on the World Wide Web. For data and more information about USGS investigations in Massachusetts, visit 

http://ma.water.usgs.gov/ or call the Massachusetts-Rhode Island 

District office in Northborough, Massachusetts at

1-508-490-5000.

Prepared by Matthew G. Cooke, Roy S. Socolow, and Joseph L. 

Zanca. Graphic design by Mark V. Bonito.

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Montague Water Facts

• Since 1904, 70 different USGS employees have made a total 

of 353 discharge measurements at the Montague City station. 

• Since 1960, over 1 million, 15-minute-interval stage recordings have been made at the station. Before 1960, stage was 

continuously recorded graphically.

• The highest recorded flow at the Montague City station was 

236,000 cubic feet per second (1,765,000 gallons per second), 

recorded March 19, 1936. This was enough water to fill two 

Olympic-size swimming pools every second.

• The highest recorded stage, 49.2 feet, was also on March 19, 

1936.

• The lowest flow ever recorded at the station was 215 cubic 

feet per second, on August 31 and September 1, 1958.

• The drainage area of the Connecticut River at Montague City 

is 7,860 square miles, and extends into Canada and large 

portions of eastern Vermont, western New Hampshire, and 

western Massachusetts. 

The Connecticut River at the Holyoke Dam, Holyoke, Massachusetts, 

March 1936. The highest discharge ever recorded at the Montague 

City station, 236,000 cubic feet per second, and the highest stage, 49.2 

feet, were recorded during the flood on March 19.