Grid Luck Crossing the Charles

From Dave Brigham:

Whenever I discover something quirky in service of this blog, I act as if people have been purposely keeping it a secret from me.

The old buildings that make up Brighton's Charles River Speedway, a favorite drinking and hangout destination of mine, were once part of a horse racing facility? Why didn't anyone ever tell me?!

There's a Colonial-era highway behind a hotel just a few miles from where I grew up in Connecticut? That's something I should have been told about as a kid!

Today, I focus my apoplexy on the folks who hid from me the existence of the Gridley Locks near Boston's TD Garden.

I stumbled across the locks, which are part of the Charles River Dam that was built in 1978, when looking on Google Maps for a good place to make photos of the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge. "What the hell are the Gridley Locks?" I asked myself. "Who's responsible for keeping this Backside knowledge from me?"

Accessible via Lovejoy Wharf to the south and Paul Revere Park to the north, the locks are not at all hidden, but since they sit parallel to the North Washington Street bridge connecting the North End to Charlestown, they are certainly a less popular way of connecting those urban dots.

I love lesser-used pathways and alleys and tunnels and the like, so within a few days of learning about the locks, I had to check them out. There is nothing particularly photogenic about the locks, although there is the added attraction of the Charlestown Bells, an interactive music sculpture created by artist Paul Matisse. The bells are located, as you may have guessed by the name, near the Charlestown side of the dam.

I passed several people in my walk across the locks. I'm sure a few were wondering why the hell I was making photos of something as pedestrian as the walkway across a narrow part of the Charles River. The emotion I felt as I walked along was, I will admit, glee mixed with boredom. I'm always happy to find an out-of-the-way method of getting from one place to another.

So, what's the story with the locks, and who are they named after?

"Built and operational in 1978, the three locks can be crossed by pedestrians," per Wikipedia. "It is part of the popular Boston Harborwalk. The dam contains three individual locks, with one wider than the other two to accommodate the occasional passing of a larger vessel."

They were named for Col. Richard Gridley, who was George Washington’s chief engineer in the Continental Army. "Col. Gridley engineered the fortifications at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775, and at Dorchester Heights, where General Howe and his army were forced to evacuate Boston in March of 1776," according to the always thorough and enjoyable The Next Phase Blog.

Several years ago I explored near the locks, as my son and I checked out the North Bank Pedestrian Bridge that connects the southeastern tip of Cambridge to Charlestown.

Skirting a Superfund Site to See Some Ruins

From Dave Brigham:

Located in a "four corners" area where Acton, Sudbury and Maynard meet with the southwest corner of Concord, Powder Mill Woods Conservation Area is a peaceful little oasis with an explosive past.

Nestled between residential developments, the Thoreau Club (about which more below) and a Superfund site (also about which more below), Powder Mill Woods is the latest tucked-away area of intrigue I've explored in Concord (see April 20, 2024, "More Military Relics in the Home of the American Revolution" and December 4, 2012, "Concord, Part I: Old Rifle Range").

"The area has a 100-year history of gunpowder manufacture, the depressions in the landscape ideal for protecting individual buildings," according to the Town of Concord's Powder Mill Woods Trail Guide. "Trails follow 19th-century cart paths and narrow gauge railroad beds once used to move materials among separate buildings of the production process."

I knew from looking at the trail guide ahead of time that I'd stumble across the twisted rails shown below, but I still was pleasantly surprised.

"These narrow-gauge rails are relics of a railroad used by the American Powder Mills and other gunpowder manufacturing companies that once operated here," according to a sign posted next to this display of gnarled metal. "Horse-drawn rail-mounted carriages hauled materials on the railroad from as early as 1880 until at least 1913."

There are other small remnants spread throughout the woods.

As I strolled along, I was aware of fences and "No Trespassing" signs along the northern perimeter. That's because between the conservation area and Main Street, there is the Nuclear Metals, Inc., site. "The Nuclear Metals, Inc. site – also known as the Starmet Corporation site – is located on a 46-acre parcel in Concord, Massachusetts," according to this U.S. Environmental Protection Agency web site. "Nuclear Metals made depleted uranium products, primarily for armor-piercing ammunition. It also manufactured metal powders for medical applications, photocopiers, and specialty metal products such as beryllium tubing used in the aerospace industry. From 1958 to 1985, waste was discharged into an unlined holding basin. Facility operations contaminated soil and groundwater with hazardous chemicals. Following immediate actions to protect human health and the environment, the site’s long-term cleanup is ongoing."

I'm not sure what will become of the site once it has been cleaned up entirely.

I knew from the trail guide that there were ruins in the area, so I kept tromping until I found them.

Gunpowder production began on this site in 1835. "At its peak, production involved forty buildings scattered throughout the 400-acre area in Acton, Concord, Maynard, and Sudbury," according to the trail guide. "The mills produced 1,000 lbs. (450 kg) of gunpowder per day during the American Civil War."

"Ruins of these buildings and the roads between them can still be found in the land along Forest Ridge Road, both sides of Route 62, and in the Thoreau Club property. Remnants of a large concrete building can be seen beside the old roadbed that passes through the northeast corner of the Thoreau Club land."

Those concrete ruins are what I photographed here.

Nearby I checked out some cabins associated with the Thoreau Club's summer camp.

The club was founded in 1951 by Clifford and Dorothy Pulis. The camp "was the fulfillment of a dream to create a day camp where they could share their love of nature, the outdoors and their camping expertise," per the club's web site. "Incorporating their own wilderness camping experiences and a quote from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, 'Every morning an opportunity to make life of equal simplicity with nature,' the...Pulis team created a unique camp environment that captured the feeling of the deep woods of Maine in rural Concord, MA."

Doing Time on the Reformatory Branch Trail

From Boxcar Willie:

Like a 19th-century murderer sent up the river to Concord for a long hitch, I've had the Reformatory Branch Railroad on my mind for quite some time.

OK, that's a terrible opening sentence, something worthy of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which challenges participants "to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written." Still, my point stands: since my buddy Chris DeBarge, owner/operator of Bird in Hand Tattoo and a fellow explorer, mentioned the old railroad line in Bedford and Concord, Mass., many years ago, I've wanted to get there. And boy am I glad I did - I loved the trail and the history and the reformatory and found so much more than I'd expected.

Let's hop this freight!

I'm going to start not where I started, nor my point of completion, but rather somewhere in the middle.

The sun was setting on the former Billerica and Bedford Railroad Engine House as I wrapped up my hike along the old right-of-way for the Reformatory Branch, which I will get to shortly. I had no idea that this nicely restored building, the adjacent Boston and Maine Railroad engine and the Middlesex Central Railroad Passenger Depot were located in the heart of Bedford.

This area marks the northern terminus of the 10.1-mile Minuteman Bikeway, which also runs through Lexington, Arlington and Cambridge. The trail was built by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on an inactive railway bed in the early 1990s. The old freight/engine house, which dates to 1877, now serves as an information center, museum and gift shop.

The train set on tracks right outside the engine house door is "Rail Diesel Car #6211, which was one of 110 purchased by the Boston & Maine Railroad from the Budd Company to be used for commuter and branch line service," per MACRIS. It is available to rent for meetings or special events.

As for the depot, it was restored in 2014, five years after the freight house was given the same treatment. Both buildings had been under private owneship for decades prior. The Stick Style building dates to 1874. I believe there are small businesses located here. The old depot has some great details.

OK, now let's get to where I started my adventure, at the eastern end of the Reformatory Branch Trail, which is located just south of the John Glenn Middle School, a short distance up Railroad Avenue from the old depot complex.

"The Reformatory Branch Trail was originally a railroad right of way of the Middlesex Central Railroad which opened in 1873 running from Lexington to Bedford and Concord," according to the Town of Concord's Reformatory Branch Trail Guide. "In 1879, the railroad was extended 2.5 miles west to Elm Street near the Concord Reformatory (now the Massachusetts Correctional Institution facility), with a connection to other rail lines at Concord Junction in West Concord. The railroad was taken over by the Boston and Maine Railroad in 1887. Passenger service was maintained by the B & M Railroad until 1926 and remaining freight service until 1962 when the entire branch was abandoned."

I saw some nice trail-side details on this portion of my hike.

(Old fire hydrant.)

(Old concrete signal posts.)

(Kinda spooky, kinda heavenly.)

The trail was pretty muddy at certain points, which was no surprise, given the wet winter we had.

I briefly considered a detour into the Mary Putnam Webber Wildlife Preserve, but I had limited daylight and wanted to get as far down the trail as I could.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a view through the trees open up to the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.

The refuge is accessible by car via a road that crosses the trail.

I ventured on a little longer, eventually turning around at Great Meadows Road once I'd crossed into Concord. I wanted to get back to my car before dark. I hiked for nearly two hours in boots that aren't great for my bad feet. But I was happy. Little did I know that after my trek, I'd stumble across Depot Park and two beautifully restored buildings and train car that I wrote about at the top of this post.

I resolved to complete as much of the Concord portion of the trail as I could, and so not long after my initial adventure, I did just that. I started where the trail hits Lowell Road near The Concord Market, and worked my way east toward Great Meadows Road.

A short distance in, I spied this old hunk o' junk in the woods just off the trail.

A friend tells me this is a rotary sifter of some type, perhaps for sifting gravel from sand for making concrete aggregate.

I also saw another signal post, this one a victim of edaphoecotropism.

I took a side trip to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. But again, I didn't want to tarry, as I was on a mission and needed to double back in order to complete it. Below are some shots of the side trails I took to and from the graveyard, which is where some of Concord's most eminent folks are buried.

Since the bridge that once carried the Reformatory-bound trains over the Sudbury River was washed out by the 1938 hurricane, I returned to my car behind the market, and made my way toward Egg Rock.

To access Egg Rock, which is where the Assabet and Sudbury rivers come together to form the Concord River, I had to park on Nashawtuc Road and walk down Squaw Sachem Trail (a private road) and take the narrow path between two houses (#50 and #80).

And that opened up to -- tada! -- the Reformatory Branch Trail.

I headed east toward the confluence until I could go no further. Below is a photo showing where the bridge used to be.

I turned back west, figuring the trail might be blocked or overgrown as it ran along the Assabet, behind some very nice houses. But I was wrong! So I trudged forward.

My original plan was to return to my car, drive to MCI Concord, where the Reformatory Branch once led, make a few photos and try, probably half-heartedly, to find the trail. But since the trail kept going, so did I. Eventually the trail curved south and I ended up on a quiet road near a relatively new housing development. I didn't feel like bushwacking at the curve point to see if the trail continued, so I headed out toward Elm Street.

At this point, once again, the sun was heading toward the horizon, and my dogs were barking. But I'd come all this way, walked way more than I'd anticipated, and was determined to make it to the prison.

On the west bank of the Assabet River, hard by Route 2, I spied what I guessed might be a remnant of the railroad right-of-way.

And just past that, I made a photo of a house along Route 2 that may at one point have been affiliated with the prison, which is located across the road.

And then, at last, I found myself standing in front of the Second Empire building that I'd driven past countless times over the last few decades, the place that looks like a Victorian mental hospital.

Known alternately as the Massachusetts State Prison Warden's House and the Concord Reformatory Warden's House, this brick building at the Concord Rotary was once a residence and offices for prison personnel. MACRIS has an interesting take: "By far the grandest building in West Concord, the Superintendents' House uses the power of the French-inspired Second Empire style to assert its authority over both the prison behind it and the area around it."

It was built in 1878 as the main entrance to what was then a new prison. Over the years, older buildings were torn down and new, less architectually significant ones went up. Once the prison opened, development in West Concord increased dramatically.

From MACRIS: "From the mid-1880's on, much of the building boom, and the social and organizational structure of West Concord as well, was guided by the residents of this building, both before and during their tenures as Reformatory Superintendent and Deputy-Superintendent. Most influential was Joseph Scott, who, with George Russell, developed the Riverside Park neighborhood northeast of the reformatory while Superintendent in the early 1890's. In 1896, with Loring Fowler, he formed the two major Concord Junction real estate syndicates of the later 1890's — the Concord Junction Land Co. and the West End Land Co."

With the announcement earlier this year that the state plans to close MCI Concord -- as the prison has been known for quite some time now -- this summer, this area of Concord is slated for more big changes. The prison has been operating at less than half capacity for some time.

There is no definite plan for the site yet, but the possibilities are tantalizing. "The potential for the prison site situated on the dreaded Route 2 Rotary is enormous," per the Boston Globe article linked above. "For starters it should spur discussion of a reconfiguration of one of the state’s most fearsome traffic circles. But beyond that, 'It’s perfect for housing,' state Senator Mike Barrett, whose district includes Concord, told the Globe editorial board. 'It’s walkable to West Concord [center]' and its train station. 'It could be a whole new neighborhood.'"

I imagine a mix of housing, retail and office space will spring up here eventually. And I certainly hope that the old warden's house will be saved and restored and turned into something useful for the community.

More Military Relics in the Home of the American Revolution

From Dave Brigham:

My hour-long hike through the Annursnac-Baptist Brook Conservation Area would have been perfect, but for the distant whine of leaf blowers. Sure, I was wandering through Concord, Mass., not the Australian outback, but is it too much to ask on a Sunday afternoon in late fall for folks to lay down their gas-powered lawn tools so an ordinary schmuck can have a peaceful walk through the woods while looking for ruins?

While I enjoy walking in the woods just for the heck of it, or to exercise my dog, I prefer doing so if there's a backside payoff. So when I learned that this conservation area had a history including not only military vestiges, but also remains from research done by the World's Greatest University, I knew I had to check it out.

This isn't the first time I've hiked through Concord seeking military relics. In the early days of the blog, I learned about a World War I-era rifle range in the tony Boston suburb, and sought it out (see December 4, 2012, "Concord, Part I: Old Rifle Range").

As for my Annursnac hike, within two minutes of setting out, I was looking at the foundation of an equipment storage building that was part of Harvard University's antenna research and test site in the late 1940s and into the following decade. Harvard purchased 63 acres of farmland in this area in 1949 for use by its Departments of Physics and Applied Science, according to this Town of Concord trail guide.

According to the web site for Harvard's John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, in 1938 Ronold W.P. King joined the school's faculty (he would remain at Harvard until at least 1972). From King's Wikipedia entry: "His research group at Harvard spent the 1940s and 1950s developing the theory of antenna (radio), using the cylindrical antenna as a boundary value problem subject to Maxwell's equations....King is responsible for the inverted-F antenna, the most widely used antenna in mobile phones. However, he did not develop this antenna for that purpose. Rather the intended use was missile telemetry."

Further along the trail, I spied more ruins, this time a long-fallen antenna base.

After spotting the remnant of that downed radio tower, I was on high alert. Soon after, I was able to make out what was left of a utility pole.

Also in this area, I saw a curious site, which may not date to the days of Harvard's research program, but it surely is pretty damn old.

While all these sightings were great, the best was yet to come.

"At the northwest corner beside the main trail are the ruins of a 41-foot by 24-foot concrete structure and radio tower," per the Town of Concord trail guide. "Coinciding with the development of Hanscom Air Base in 1941, the U.S. Army Air Corps leased 16.5 acres to build and operate a facility for tracking aircraft arrivals and departures from the airfield, and as a radio direction/finder station. The structure is believed to be part of that installation....From 1959 to 1969 it was an off-base installation known as the U.S. Air Force Strawberry Hill Electronics Research Annex."

Man, I love to learn about stuff like this. What was once farmland was turned into not one, but two, installations related to antennas and aircraft tracking, and then, after the lifespan of those projects ended, nature reclaimed the land (helped by conservation efforts).

As with many places like this I come across, it's obviously a major hangout for kids/teens/twentysomethings. I was intrigued by a barrel at this site, with the word "SOCONY" on the top.

A quick Google search turned up that SOCONY stood for Standard Oil Company of New York, one of the 43 entities created by the 1911 Supreme Court decision breaking up Standard Oil. In 1931, SOCONY merged with Vacuum Oil Company, "from which the Mobil name first originated," according to Wikipedia. "Over time, Mobil became the company's primary identity, which prompted a renaming in 1955 to the Socony Mobil Oil Company, and then in 1966 to the Mobil Oil Corporation."

I can't be sure that this barrel is one used for oil on the old U.S. Army Air Corps site, but I'd like to think that some kids dug it out of the woods a long time ago.

As for the Annursnac trail, it continues north into neighboring Acton, and becomes the Stoneymeade Conservation Land. Click that link and read about what you'll find on the conservation land, and learn about the history of Stoneymeade Farm, which dates to Revolutionary War days.