ROYALSTON – The Town of Royalston is perhaps best known as home to the Birch Hill and Tully dams, several historical 19th century buildings and homes nestled around Royalston Common, or the many trails available to hiking enthusiasts.

But Royalston is also known for its many waterfalls that attract visitors at all times of the year.

On Sunday, April 6, the Royalston Historical Society will present “Royalston’s Waterfalls and How They’ve Shaped Our Community.” The program, which is free to the public, will take place at 2 p.m. at Town Hall.

Historical Society secretary Maureen Blasco told the Athol Daily News, “We’ll be touching upon the historical and geological elements connected to Doane’s, Spirit and Royalston falls.”

Currently, the falls are administered by Massachusetts’ Trustees of Reservations, a non-profit organization dedicated to land conservation and historic preservation.

The program includes a lecture which, according to Blasco, “is largely taken from the publication ‘Borderlands,’ which the trustees commissioned in 2004. We’re also encouraging welcoming and encouraging anyone who has stories about the falls to come and share them. We really want to bring people from the community to share their own stories. Everybody has stories and we’d like to hear them whether or not they’re historical in nature – family events, discoveries, picnics, any stories at all.”

As an example, Blasco said, local resident Kathy Morris and Peter Kraniak “both told me that when they went there in the 80s, how some of the remnants of the building that had been at Royalston Falls were still there.”

Asked about the purpose of the building, Blasco replied good-naturedly, “You’ll find out when you come to the lecture.”

She went on to explain, “There is documentation of development of recreation there – a dance hall, picnic areas – and supposedly people from all around came to Royalston Falls in the movement toward getting away to beautiful places that weren’t too far away from the city. Royalston Falls was a destination.”

Blasco said the program will also include a slide show of “turn-of-the-20th century postcards featuring Royalston and the falls. There will also be a collection of dinosaur footprints on hand.

“James A. Bates, a pastor from South Royalston, put together a number of natural collections over a hundred years ago. One of them was a small rock collection that included so-called ‘Noah’s raven’ dinosaur footprints from Turners Falls. Eighteenth century farmers regarded the footprints as proof of Noah’s Biblical Flood, hence the name.”

For anyone interested, the 117-page Borderlands Report, prepared in 2004 by Electa Kane Tritsch for The Trustees of Reservations, can be accessed online at www.royalston-ma.gov/historic-district-commission/pages/references.

Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.