Summer Rerun! A few weeks ago, I posted a story about the old Circumferential Highway and the changes that it made to Reservoir Street. This led to questions about why Reservoir Street was called that, since it is not anywhere near the reservoir. This is why –
If you say ‘The Reservoir’ in Needham today, most people will think of the reservoir on Dedham Avenue behind the DPW. This small lake was built in 1903 to serve as a collection pond for water flowing down from the springs on Birds Hill, to supply water to the town’s first municipal pumping station. Long since superseded by Needham’s modern water supply system, the reservoir is now a recreational asset, a lovely location for fishing, viewing, or a pleasant stroll around its walkway, Amity Path.
So why, then, is Reservoir Street at the other end of town? Why there is no reservoir? The short answer is – Once, there was.
As early as 1836, Needham maps show a reservoir on the northern edge of town, in the area that is now the interchange between Routes 9 and 128. This whole stretch of the Charles River, between Lower Falls and Upper Falls, was the focus of early manufacturing activity. The Falls are not very big, but they were all the water power that was available in the days before steam engines and other mechanical contrivances. Managing the water flow by adding drop-steps, constricting the flow, and so forth, was the only real means of increasing its power.
The Reservoir was man-made, created by damming the inflow into a small low-lying basin beside the Charles River. This was a fairly common practice, and other ponds such as Longfellow Pond and Rosemary Lake were also made this way to serve the needs of manufacturing. Asa Kingsbury’s 1836 map of Needham shows a “Cotton Factory” at the end of the Reservoir; that same mill is shown on Henry Walling’s 1856 map as a “Nail Manufactory” with an adjacent storehouse.
At that time, access to the Reservoir and the factories on its banks was from the Worcester Turnpike (now better known as Route 9). Reservoir Street itself was not built until 1874, to provide greater access to the growing number of businesses and residences in that part of town. The street ran northward from Central Avenue, crossing the Reservoir via a causeway to meet the Worcester Turnpike (the southern half of the road came later, post-1930).
The Reservoir is still shown on Needham maps as late as the 1930s but disappeared soon after, a victim of post-War progress and the rise of the automobile. Until that time, the main roads to and from Boston were hubs-and-spokes, without a lot of crossways to shorten the trips between suburbs. In the mid-1930s, the Commonwealth designated a circumferential route around Boston to facilitate the transportation of goods and freight. Without resources for a major-road building project, MA chained together a route from Canton to Peabody based on existing roads, and dubbed it The Circumferential Highway. In Needham, the ‘Circumferential Highway’ ran along Greendale Avenue to the intersection with Kendrick Street, then north toward Central Avenue along the newly-extended Reservoir Street.
After the War, however, the economy was booming and in 1948 the Governor developed a Highway Master Plan to create two new highways – Routes 128 and 495 – to navigate around Boston and more easily link the land-rich suburbs with the growing industries of Boston and Cambridge. The new Route 128 ran along the same basic route as the Circumferential Highway. In Needham, this road overran parts of the Circumferential route, erasing parts of Reservoir Street and the small roads at its northern end. The Reservoir itself, which was no longer needed for industry, was filled in and the land became the cloverleaf that connected Rt. 128 with Rt. 9. Any factory remains were also erased by the highway, though the storehouse still survives as the Stone House at the Route 9 edge of Echo Bridge Park.
However (there’s always a However), a small part of the Reservoir remains. On the southern edge of Rt. 9 right along the on-ramp from Rt. 128 is a small lake known as New Pond. New Pond is what is left of the Reservoir. A tiny part of Needham’s ancient industrial history, surviving quietly alongside its modern industrial history.
