Old Stone Bridge Trail
6:00am on a Saturday. Our youngest child is already up and ready to party. It's funny the things you miss the older you get. Sleep. Summer break. Going to the bathroom without an audience.
I load my bike up on our swagger wagon and head to the trail. Weekend morning traffic is a beautiful thing. It starts to rain as I head towards Fox Valley Tech.
History
The Old Stone Bridge Trail is located near Appleton, Wisconsin. The trail head is technically in Grand Chute. The bridge itself is the last standing remnant of the Outagamie County Asylum for the Chronic Insane. The Asylum opened in 1890 with the mission to shelter individuals struggling with developmental delays and mental illness.
Superintendents struggled to staff the Asylum with qualified doctors and other health care professionals. Many of the early staff members had no health care training and the facilities relied on traveling doctors and psychiatrists to support the patients. Care was focused on food, shelter, and other primary needs while treatment was often forgotten.
However, the Asylum offered a steady supply of work for individuals who may not have had the chance in the larger community for gainful employment. Jobs included cleaning, cooking, and farming. The facilities boasted over 500 acres of farm land prime for produce and milk production. Cows from the Asylum's farm could produce over 415,000 pounds of milk. Because the facility relied so much on labor from the patients, an investigation was launched in 1944. The investigation found that many patients were malnourished and overburdened with tasks.
In the year 2000, Brewster Village was built alongside the Outagamie County Health Center (formerly the Asylum). Now the only thing that remains of the Asylum is the Old Stone Bridge.
The trail
The trailhead is located just south of Fox Valley Technical College. Google Maps takes you directly to a parking lot for the start of the trail. The path leads through a wooded area past two signs detailing the history of the area.
To the west less than a quarter of a mile past the trailhead lies a short trail that takes you to the Outagamie County Cemetery. Follow the trail through the woods and it eventually splits to create a wide loop around the college. Turing right takes you east towards the north parking lot. At just past the one mile mark you past several ponds.
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