The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) is a public authority in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that provides wholesale drinking water and sewage services to 3.1 million people in sixty-one municipalities and more than 5,500 large industrial users in the eastern and central parts of the state, primarily in the Boston area.
This is a list of historic sites in Framingham, Massachusetts. There are several notable historic sites in Framingham, according to the Framingham Historical Society. This local society asserts:
While there are many historic spaces in Framingham, the Centre Common is the focal point for the town's past. Three of the town's most historic buildings on the Centre Common face "demolition by neglect." The Village Hall, the Edgell Memorial Library, and the Old Academy building not only house over 10,000 artifacts spanning four centuries of the town's history, but they are symbols of Framingham's commitment to educational excellence, civic engagement, and community pride.
Lake Cochituate is a body of water in Natick, Wayland, and Framingham, Massachusetts, United States. Originally a reservoir serving Boston, it no longer serves that function, and is now a local recreational resource and home to Cochituate State Park.
The Marlborough Brook Filter Beds are a series of water filtration beds near the mouth of Marlborough Brook, where it enters Sudbury Reservoir near the town line between Marlborough and Southborough, Massachusetts. The filter beds were constructed in 1895 as part of the reservoir construction to improve the water quality of Marlborough and Walker Brooks, and are the best-preserved of two such facilities built as part of the public water supply serving Boston and surrounding communities. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
The Weston Aqueduct is an aqueduct operated by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA). Now part of the MWRA backup systems, it was designed to deliver water from the Sudbury Reservoir in Framingham to the Weston Reservoir in Weston. The 13.5-mile (21.7 km) aqueduct begins at the Sudbury Dam, and passes through the towns of Southborough, Framingham, Wayland, and Weston. In 1990, the route, buildings and bridges of the aqueduct were added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Weston Aqueduct Linear District.
The High Service Water Tower and Reservoir, colloquially known as the Tower Hill Tower, is a public water supply facility off Massachusetts Route 110 in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The reservoir was constructed in 1874–75 to provide the city's public water supply, with a gatehouse designed by Charles T. Emerson, a Lawrence architect. The tower was built in 1896 as a high pressure standpipe or water tower. The tower stands 157 feet (48 m) high, and is built out of red brick with granite trim. It is Romanesque in its style, and was designed by George G. Adams, a noted local architect who had been taught by Emerson. The standpipe inside the tower is of steel construction and is 102 feet (31 m) in height. The area above the standpipe includes a balcony capped by a chateauesque roof, with round-arch windows providing views of the area. The main tower is octagonal in shape, with a narrow round staircase tower projection from one side.
The Ashland Dam and Spillway is a historic site at the north end of Ashland Reservoir in Ashland State Park in Ashland, Massachusetts. Ashland Reservoir was constructed in 1885, impounding a portion of Cold Spring Brook, a tributary of the Sudbury River. The dam and spillway were built as part of Boston's second major water works effort, which impounded large portions of the upper Sudbury River. They were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
The Framingham Reservoir No. 1 Dam and Gatehouse is a historic water works facility in Framingham, Massachusetts. This complex is located at the end of Framingham Reservoir No. 1, which is also known as the Stearns Reservoir, off Winter Street and north of Long Avenue. Constructed from 1876 to 1878 as part of an expansion of the water supply of the city of Boston, this was designed by its first city architect George A. Clough. The historical purpose of the reservoir, which was located at the confluence of two branches of the Sudbury River, was primarily to control the river's water level, and secondarily to provide reserve supply capacity. The reservoir's reserve capacity was generally used only as a backup supply, as the reservoir's muddy bottom made it a less desirable source than reservoir No. 3 upstream. However the reservoir No. 1 system was nonetheless important due to its role in controlling the flow of the river downstream, and due to the gatehouse which controlled the water flows for all the Framingham reservoirs into the Sudbury Aqueduct. Reservoir No. 1 is no longer maintained as a reserve water source, although it is still owned by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, successor to the Boston Water Board which oversaw its construction. MWRA retains ownership as the gatehouse contains the connection between Reservoir No. 3 and the Sudbury Aqueudct which remain part of the emergency water systems.
The Framingham Reservoir No. 3 Dam and Gatehouse is a historic waterworks facility in Framingham, Massachusetts. The dam and gatehouse are located at the southeastern end of Framingham Reservoir No. 3, off Massachusetts Route 9. They were built 1876–78 as part of an expansion of the public water supply of the city of Boston. The dam is 2,280 feet (690 m) long, and impounds an area of 253 acres (102 ha) in the Sudbury River watershed. The reservoir is the largest of the three Framingham reservoirs that were built at that time. The dam's core is constructed of granite rubble laid in cement. There is a granite-lined overfall area 100 feet (30 m) long, which was originally topped by flashboards. At the end of the overfall area nearest Route 9 stands the gatehouse, a granite structure with a rectangular main block and a smaller wing. Both sections have a steeply pitched slate roof. The door is in a round-arch recess, and the building is capped by a cupola. It houses controls for two 4-foot (1.2 m) mains connected to the Sudbury Aqueduct via the gatehouse at Reservoir No. 1. The water is directed either directly beyond the dam into reservoir 1 or through the 4-foot mains to the Sudbury Aqueduct gatehouse.
The Sudbury Dam Historic District is a historic district on the southeastern end of Sudbury Reservoir off Massachusetts Route 30 in Framingham and Southborough, Massachusetts. The district encompasses the Sudbury Dam, which impounds the reservoir, and an area encompassing several historic structures located below the dam. The area includes water-supply-related structures from three phases of development of the Greater Boston water supply system. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
The Sudbury Aqueduct is an aqueduct in Massachusetts. It runs for 16 miles (26 km) from Farm Pond at Waverly Street in Framingham to Chestnut Hill Reservoir in Boston’s Chestnut Hill neighborhood. A later built extension main runs from the Farm Pond gatehouse to the gatehouse at the Stearns Reservoir where additional mains connect to the Brackett and Foss Reservoirs Going east from Framingham, it runs through Sherborn before entering Natick. From Natick it runs east through Wellesley and Needham to the Charles River, which it crosses on the Echo Bridge into Newton. It ends at the Chestnut Hill Reservoir on the Newton side of the Newton-Boston line. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) operates the aqueduct.
The Hopkinton Dam and Spillway is a historic site at the eastern end of Hopkinton Reservoir in Hopkinton State Park in Ashland, Massachusetts. The western end of the reservoir lies in the town of Hopkinton. The reservoir was constructed between 1891 and 1894 as part of the city of Boston's second major water works project, the impoundment of significant portions of the Sudbury River watershed. The Hopkinton Dam impounds Indian Brook, a Sudbury River tributary, creating the reservoir to its south. The core of the dam is concrete, with earthen embankments that are bermed on the water side, with rip-rap below. The spillway is at the northern end of the dam, and is a 650-foot (200 m) series of steps lined with granite set in concrete. Unlike other dams in the system, this one apparently never had gatehouses built above the chambers from which water flow is controlled.
The Lake Cochituate Dam is a historic dam on the southwestern side of Lake Cochituate in Framingham, Massachusetts. The 62-foot (19 m) dam was built in 1890, replacing two earlier wooden dams, dating back to the 1846 construction of the Cochituate Aqueduct. The core of the dam is granite rubble laid in concrete. Lake Cochituate was taken out of service as part of Boston's public water supply in the 1930s, and the lake and dam were eventually turned over to the state, which established Cochituate State Park.
The Mystic Dam are a historic dam and gatehouse between Lower and Upper Mystic Lakes in the suburbs north of Boston, Massachusetts. The dam was built in 1864–65 by the Charlestown Water Commission as part of a water supply system. It was located at a narrow point between the Lower and Upper Mystic Lakes, with its west end in Arlington and its east end in Medford. The water system it was a part of eventually merged into the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), predecessor to the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR).
The Middlesex Fells Reservoirs Historic District is a historic district roughly bounded by Pond St., Woodland Rd., I-93, and MA 28 in Stoneham and Medford, Massachusetts. It encompasses a portion of the Middlesex Fells Reservation, a state park managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). The principal features of the district are three reservoirs and their associated gate houses and pumping stations, which were developed by the Metropolitan District Commission starting in the late 19th century. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
Reservoir Park is a historic park on Boylston Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. Its principal feature is Brookline Reservoir, formerly an element of the public water supply for neighboring Boston.
The Hultman Aqueduct forms part of the water supply system of eastern Massachusetts, managed by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA). The aqueduct extends from Southborough to Weston, connecting the Cosgrove Tunnel to the distribution network in the Greater Boston area. Opened in 1939, it replaced the Weston Aqueduct. It is now itself a secondary system, having been supplanted as the primary conduit in 2003 by the MetroWest Water Supply Tunnel. From 2009 to 2014, it was rehabilitated and taken offline, in order to repair leaks which were causing losses of at least 400,000 US gallons (1,500,000 L) of water per day in the 1990s.
George Albert Clough was an architect working in Boston in the late 19th-century. He designed the Suffolk County Courthouse in Pemberton Square, and numerous other buildings in the city and around New England. Clough served as the first City Architect of Boston from 1876 to 1883.
The Sudbury Reservoir is an emergency backup Boston metropolitan water reservoir in Massachusetts, located predominantly in Southborough and Marlborough, with small sections in Westborough and Framingham. It was created when the Sudbury Dam was constructed to impound the Stony Brook branch of the Sudbury River; no part of the reservoir lies in the town of Sudbury. Nearly 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) in the Sudbury Reservoir watershed are administered by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation as a limited-access public recreation area.
Hinckley Lake is located by Hinckley, New York. Originally dammed up to supply water to the Erie Canal, the lake provides municipal water supply to 130,000 people in the greater Utica, New York area, is a source of hydropower, and supports recreation during all seasons. The lake is located in the towns of Russia in Herkimer County, and Remsen in Oneida County. This body of water is one of many man made lakes in the Upstate NY region. Its sister lake is Delta Lake, also dammed up to supply water to the Erie Canal.
