There's a tale that goes with this one.
In 1935, a WPA crew was felling trees to form a clearing alongside a stream. A sudden summer rainstorm came up and a couple of the timbers floated away. Downstream they lodged against the center pier of a NY Central railroad trestle that spanned a gorge. Other debris became lodged, a dam was formed, the water rose, other logs were dislodged, floated downstream and joined their brethren.
Eventually it was too much weight and the pier buckled. Suddenly a forty foot wall of water, trees, trestle, and freight cars came roaring down the gorge, through the town, and eventually into the lake beyond. There was much damage, but only one casualty.
The gorge is now a seasonal park and tourist attraction. Seventy three years later, a different crew was maintaining a path along the stream bank. They unearthed this - roughly a half mile down stream from the trestle site, and chose to leave it in place as a part of the history of the place.
