Bridgewater residents have cause to celebrate the town's 175th anniversary this week.

Bridgewater is a town full of living history and people proud of their heritage.

These days, nearly 6,000 people call Bridgewater home. It's a small town with strong ties to its past.

The town was founded by John and Jacob Dinkel, German settlers whose descendants still live in the town.

Mayor Hallie Dinkel is one of them.

"To me it's very special of course, knowing my family's history and that my ancestors pretty much started the town back in the 1830s," says Dinkel.

"Something unique about Bridgewater is that many of the people who live here today have ancestors who were here 175 years ago," says town superintendent Bob Holton.

Dinkel's ancestors still have a presence in the town. On the Bridgewater College campus, John Dinkle's gravestone rests under a tree.

"People don't pass through Bridgewater, generations live here," says Holton.

Though the years, people in the town have overcome great difficulty.

"So many events have happened here that the community has had to work their way through that we actually said that the story of Bridgewater is the story of survival," says Holton.

The town has endured the Civil War, the Great Depression and half a dozen major floods. The 1949 flood killed three people and did a $1 million in damage.

"A million dollars in 1949 was a tremendous amount of money," says Holton.

The town was broke and there was no money for holiday decorations that December, but the town's mayor wouldn't let Christmas bypass Bridgewater.

"He had a string of Christmas lights strung up on a tree on Main street in the town," says Holton. "It's sort of like the end of 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas.' Everybody came together. They celebrated Christmas and it probably epitomized Bridgewater at the time."

So from financial ruin to the thriving town it is today, the struggles have made Bridgewater stronger, 175 years and counting.