On April 27, 1938, two thousand people packed the town hall in Enfield, Massachusetts, for a farewell ball. At midnight, the orchestra played "Auld Lang Syne" and four towns ceased to exist by law. This is the story of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott, wiped off the map and flooded to build the Quabbin Reservoir so Boston would never run out of water: the law, the strangers who came to measure the valley, the price of a home, the seven thousand graves that were moved, and the people who danced on the last night.

0:00 The last dance
0:37 The valley
1:45 Boston is thirsty
2:32 The law
3:24 The strangers
4:46 The price
5:43 Marion Smith
6:47 The dead
7:46 The deadline
8:51 The last dance
10:16 The water
11:32 What's left
13:16 Midnight

The narrator's "you" is a composite resident of the valley, built from the sources below.

Satellite imagery: NASA EOSDIS GIBS (Blue Marble, Landsat WELD) · map search © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Four towns danced until midnight. Then the water came.