Arcadia Road

Arcadia Road runs north from Boston Road to Allen Road in Riverdale, the neighborhood between Allen Road and the Shawsheen River developed by the civil engineer Edgar P. Sellew. It first appears on Sellew's "Subdivision Plan of Land in Billerica," dated July 10, 1909 and filed with the Land Court on July 22, 1909 (Land Court Plan 2162-B, certificate 119), which shows the road leaving Boston Road and running north through house lots numbered 97 to 160, with Highland Road branching to the west, Hillside Road (now Marshbrook Road) to the east, and Rural Avenue to the east near its north end, on land bounded by George H. Spaulding and others on the west and Sellew and Harry W. Essex on the north. Sellew's "Camp and Garden Lots at Riverdale," dated September 1, 1910 and recorded October 31, 1910 (Plan Book 28, Plan 5), carried it, 30 feet wide, up to Allen Road, with Garden Road (now Garden Brook Road) branching west through the garden lots. The directories of 1916 and 1919 list "Arcadia Road from Allen rd southerly to Boston rd." The name, that of the pastoral paradise of Greek poetry, is one of Sellew's idealizing names in Riverdale, like Sylvan, Intervale and Utopia; no statement of his reasons has been found.

Water came early: by 1914 the town's water statistics carried a main on "Arcadia Hillside and Allen" roads, built for $3,134.70, and in the fire flow tests of May 1919 the insurance engineers tested the hydrants of the "Camps" district at "Bstn & Arcadia Rds." At the annual town meeting of 1936 the town voted to accept "Arcadia Road from Boston Road to Rural Avenue, a distance of about 1300 feet." The 1938 meeting first dismissed an article to accept "the remaining unaccepted parts of Arcadia Road, and of Hillside Road" with roads of the Riverdale loop, then voted 141 to 58 to reconsider and accepted it. The town's list of accepted streets printed in 1956 gives "Arcadia Rd. Boston Rd. to Rural Ave. 2-8-36" and "Arcadia Rd. Complete 2-5-38."

The highway surveyor reported Arcadia Road "rolled and oiled from Boston Road to Evergreen Road" in 1939 and from Boston Road to Allen Road in 1940, and in 1942 replaced an old 6 inch culvert with a 12 inch one "to prevent the accumulation of ice along Allen Road at Arcadia Road." In 1949 the town voted to scrape and tar another 400 feet, and the road was "Graveled, tar-penetration applied, and sealed entire length" that year; a larger water main was laid in it under the bond issue of 1949. A $2,500 drainage article lost on a rising vote of 53 to 87 in 1965, though 190 feet of drain was laid that year. A drainage improvement project was designed in 1997 and built from 1998 to 1999, and the road was repaved in 2006. It was not on the official town map of 1831 and was not among the roads accepted in 2016.

References

1. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1936: town votes to accept Arcadia Road from Boston Road to Rural Avenue, about 1,300 feet
2. Annual Report 1938: remaining unaccepted parts of Arcadia Road accepted after reconsideration, 141 to 58
3. Annual Report 1949: Arcadia Road graveled, tar penetration applied and sealed for its entire length
4. Annual Report 1956: list of accepted streets, Arcadia Road Boston Road to Rural Avenue 2-8-36, complete 2-5-38
5. Annual Report 1919: insurance engineers' fire flow tests, Camps district at Boston and Arcadia Roads
6. Annual Report 1965: $2,500 drainage article for Arcadia Road lost on a rising vote, 53 to 87