Colson Heights

Colson Heights is a neighborhood in North Billerica on the west side of Colson Street, between Lowell Street and Sprague Street, reaching west to Boston Road. It was laid out on about sixty acres of the farm of George F. Colson (1839-1914), whose family had long owned the land on the west side of Colson Street. After Colson's death his heirs, with Edgar F. Twombly as administrator of the estate, had the landscape designer Warren H. Manning, with Fred W. Stowers, surveyor, plan the farm as "Colson Heights, North Billerica Mass., owned by the Heirs of George F. Colson," recorded on July 13, 1914 in two sheets (Plan Book 31, Plan 88).

Manning's plan, unlike the straight grids of most Billerica developments of the time, numbered its lots in Sections and curved some of its streets to the ground. Holt, Hood, Brown, Franklin, Lawrence and Warren Streets ran south from Lowell Street, where the old Middlesex Canal and the electric car tracks lay on the far side, to Elm Street; George Street and a Parkway ran beside Colson Street; and Kohlrausch Avenue and Twombly Avenue led south to Sprague Street, Twombly Avenue carrying on the main street of Twombly's own Treble Cove Terrace of 1912 next door. Lots were mostly 5,000 square feet, with the same building restrictions as Treble Cove Terrace.

The town accepted Elm Street from Colson Street 700 feet westerly in 1922 and another 200 feet in 1928. In the 1988 renaming of duplicate street names Elm Street became Old Elm Street, effective November 15, 1988, and Brown Street became Nussey Terrace. Holt Street keeps its plan name; Franklin Street, Warren Street and Kohlrausch Avenue were built on the plan's lines only in the late 1970s, after the Mac-Bro Construction Corporation of Groton resubdivided the unbuilt blocks as Yorkshire Estates (K. J. Miller Company, June 1, 1970; Plan Book 112, Plan 57).

Historic Buildings

Name	Alternate	Address	Built	Moved	Demolished
Colson Barn		36 Colson St	1803
Oliver Farmer II House		34 Colson St	1803
Lyons House		10 12 Lowell St	1895
Kohlrausch House (30 Colson Street)		30 Colson St	1901
Residence at 18-20 Colson St		18-20 Colson St	1910
Residence at 32 Colson St		32 Colson St	1910
Residence at 44 Colson St		44 Colson St	1915
Residence at 12 Colson St		12 Colson St	1919
Residence at 16 Colson St		16 Colson St	1920
Residence at 40-42 Colson St		40-42 Colson St	1920
Residence at 22-24 Colson St		22-24 Colson St	1927

Points of Interest

• Kohlrausch Park (1913)