Brick Kiln Road

Brick Kiln Road
Location Map
Laid Out 1964
Right of Way 40 ft
Pavement 16 - 24 ft


Brick Kiln Road is a short road on the Chelmsford line in North Billerica. It leaves Chelmsford Road just east of the town line and runs north, close beside the line, past the end of Alpine Street (for most of its history Pine Street); its northern part lies in Chelmsford. It is an older road than the subdivisions around it. Its present course was laid out as a "new road" in Billerica and Chelmsford by the Middlesex County Commissioners in 1880. The county's plan of that layout, a tracing made under the county engineer in February 1910 from the original, shows a way 40 feet wide running straight for 1,586.7 feet and then curving to cross the Billerica and Chelmsford line, past land of Michael Reardon, Thomas Keiren, Israel Colsom, William Manning and the Town of Billerica, with a winding older way drawn beside it. The plan does not give the road a name; a later pencil note on it reads "Probably Brickman Rd. or Brick Kiln Rd."

The name Brick Kiln Road first appears in the Billerica town records in the warrant for the annual meeting of March 1915, which asked the town to widen to forty feet the "present thirty-foot road between Lowell Road and Brick Kiln Road," as shown on a plan surveyed for George F. Colson by H. W. Sheldon on June 23, 1907; the meeting voted to take the land. The Billerica records do not explain the name. The Chelmsford historian George A. Parkhurst wrote that "Brick Kiln Road was the way to the kiln where bricks were made about 1800," and that the bricks for the 1802 schoolhouse on Westford Street in Chelmsford are believed to have come from it.

For decades the road was gravel: the highway reports from 1932 to 1941 record it only as "scraped and raked." In 1938 a WPA project widened the travelway "from 10 ft. to 24 ft." over 1,800 feet, with 8 inches of gravel, 1,100 feet of new cable guard rail and new headwalls. The first tar came in 1943, when a prime coat was applied with sand over the entire length, followed by a tar seal in 1944 and asphalt seal coats in 1947 and 1949. The street directories of 1941 to 1957 describe it as running "From Chelmsford line nr end of Pine."

Industry came after the Second World War. In March 1961 the town rezoned for industry its own land between the road and the Chelmsford line, north to Black Brook, and the same year laid 2,100 feet of water main in Brick Kiln Road. The ice rink at 2 Brick Kiln Road, now the Chelmsford Forum and owned by the Town of Chelmsford, dates from about 1964, and Martell Transportation began a truck garage and warehouse on the road in 1968. At the annual town meeting of 1975 the town accepted "the laying out of Brick Kiln Road from Chelmsford Road to the Chelmsford Town line," a way 40 feet wide and about 170 feet long, although the Street Acceptance Committee advised against it unless $21,120 was spent on drainage and resurfacing; it was stated at the meeting "that this road had been accepted by the county in 1880." The town completed drainage improvements and a culvert replacement on Brick Kiln Road in 1998 and resurfaced it the same year.



Brick Kiln Road
Brick Kiln Road, 1910 (Plan 910/8)

Historic Buildings

Name Alternate Address Built Moved Demolished
Merrimack Valley Forum Chelmsford Forum 2 Brick Kiln Rd 1964

References

  1. 1914 report: warrant for March 1915 meeting, Art. 17, widen the 30-ft road between Lowell Road and Brick Kiln Road (Colson plan, 1907)
  2. 1915 annual March meeting: Art. 17 voted, Selectmen to take land to widen the street to 40 feet
  3. 1932 highway report: roads scraped, incl. Brick Kiln Rd. and Pine St.
  4. 1938 WPA projects: Brick Kiln Road project, travelway widened from 10 ft to 24 ft over 1,800 ft
  5. 1938 highway roadwork completed by the WPA: Brick Kiln Road subgraded 24 ft, 8 in. gravel, 1,100 ft cable guard rail
  6. 1943 highway report: Brick Kiln Road, prime coat of tar applied entire length
  7. 1944 highway report: Brick Kiln Road, tar seal applied entire length
  8. March 1961 annual town meeting, Art. 88: town land on Brick Kiln Road by the Chelmsford line rezoned industrial
  9. 1961 Water Department: water main extended 2,100 ft in Brick Kiln Road
  10. 1968 Industrial Commission: Martell Transportation garage and warehouse started on Brick Kiln Road
  11. 1975 annual town meeting, Art. 14: Brick Kiln Road accepted, Chelmsford Road to Chelmsford line, 40 ft by 170 ft; county layout of 1880
  12. 1998 Public Works: drainage improvements and culvert replacement completed in Brick Kiln Road
  13. Chelmsford Historical Society, George A. Parkhurst street-name quiz: Brick Kiln Road led to a brick kiln of about 1800