Alpine Street

Alpine Street in North Billerica runs from Boston Road, just north of the Sprague Bridge over the line of the Middlesex Canal, northwest to Brick Kiln Road near the Chelmsford line. For most of its history it was Pine Street. It is not one of the old town roads: it is not on the 1831 town map, it was not named in the street lists of 1897 and 1899, and it first appears in the town records in 1915.

The warrant for the annual meeting of 1916 asked the town to "accept and allow the laying out of Pine Street as a Town way, by the Selectmen, as shown on plan on file in the office of the Town Clerk," to spend $800 on repairs, and to take land "to widen Pine Street from thirty feet to forty feet." The matter was referred to a committee. In 1917 the town voted to accept Pine Street "if found to be in the proper condition," but two years later the finance committee could still only recommend repairs "provided it can be found out that Pine Street has ever been accepted by the Town." The 1919 meeting voted $400 for repairs and chose Edgar P. Sellew, Charles H. Williams and J. Frank Mullen to confer with the residents, and the next annual meeting, in February 1920, "voted to accept Pine Street as a Town Way." The town's list of accepted streets gives the date as Feb. 14, 1920. The street directory of 1919 describes it as running "from Boston rd n Sprague bridge northwesterly." How long a private way had existed there before 1915 is not recorded.

The town extended its water main from Boston Road along Pine Street in 1922, at a cost of about $6,400. The upper end, toward the Chelmsford line, was slower to come: an article to accept Pine Street "from the McKay residence to the Chelmsford Town line, a distance of approximately 1000 feet" was dismissed in 1927, and in 1933 and 1934 residents again asked the town to widen and gravel "upper Pine Street" and carry the water to the town line. In 1932 the highway department excavated Pine Street to grade and graveled 1,300 feet of it, 24 feet wide, to an average depth of 8 inches.

The name Pine Street was shared with several other streets in town, among them a Pine Street at Nutting Lake, Pine Avenue and Pine Way, and an earlier Pine Street in East Billerica that had already been renamed Baldwin Road by 1901. When the selectmen's sub-committee for re-naming streets set out in 1988 to end duplicate names, the board voted on Feb. 22, 1988 to rename this one, "Pine Street ... From Boston Road to Brick Kiln Road," as Alpine Street, effective June 1, 1988. The record gives no reason for the choice beyond the need for a unique name; the new name keeps the old one inside it.

References

1. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1916: warrant articles to accept the laying out of Pine Street by the Selectmen and to widen it from 30 to 40 feet
2. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1917: town votes to accept Pine Street as a town way "if found to be in the proper condition"
3. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1919: $400 for repairs on Pine Street and a committee to confer with its residents
4. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1920: "Voted to accept Pine Street as a Town Way"
5. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1922: water main extended from Boston Road to Pine Street and on Pine Street
6. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1927: article to accept Pine Street from the McKay residence to the Chelmsford line dismissed
7. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1932: Pine Street excavated to grade and graveled for 1,300 feet
8. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1956: list of accepted streets, "Pine St. (N. B.)" accepted Feb. 14, 1920
9. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1988: Pine Street, Boston Road to Brick Kiln Road, renamed Alpine Street, effective June 1, 1988