Dunham Road

Dunham Road
Location Map
Neighborhood Middlesex Industrial Park
Laid Out 1973


Dunham Road is an industrial street in South Billerica, about 3,100 feet long, in the industrial park on the Shawsheen River near the Bedford line, first called the Middlesex Industrial Park and now the Middlesex Corporate Park. Plank Street and Dunham Road Extension branch from it.

The earliest plan found is a Land Court plan, "Plan of Land in Billerica," by Raymond Engineering Service, Raymond J. Garcia, surveyor, dated February 22, 1973 and revised to March 11, 1975 (Land Court Plan 37078-A). It shows "Dunham Rd. (Private - 40.00 Wide)" running to a turnaround, "Dunham Rd. Extension (Private - 50.00 Wide)," and Plank Street, with lots 1 to 13 between sportsmen's club land, the Shawsheen River, Old Wyman Road and a Tennessee Gas Transmission Company pipeline easement. The town report of 1974 calls the subdivision "Middlesex Industrial Park," a Land Court plan "owned by Graham Builders, Inc.," and on October 21, 1974 a special town meeting accepted from Jon H. Graham, trustee of Riverhurst Realty Trust, a gift of lot 3, about six acres on the Shawsheen River, for conservation. That year the Industrial Commission reported that "the Industrial Park, off Middlesex Pike at Plank St. has five new tenants," and that its developer was laying sewer lines at his own expense. The assessors date the oldest building on the road, a truck terminal, to about 1968, and the others to 1973 to 1984. The plans do not explain the name, and its origin was not found.

Dunham Road has remained a private way. At the fall town meeting of October 1999 the town took easements for an emergency access road "connecting Riverbank Terrace and the Dunham Road Industrial Park area," and in 2006 the highway division finished that road, between Dunham Road Extension and Wildcrest Avenue, for use when the river floods. An article of the fall town meeting of 2012 to fund a Middlesex Corporate Park sewer and road betterment was dismissed, and the warrant of the spring town meeting of 2013 asked the town to accept "the layouts as public ways of the Middlesex Corporate Park." On June 20, 2020 the annual spring town meeting voted, 173 to 0, under Article 25, to appropriate $2,000,000 "to pay costs of making repairs to Dunham Road and Plank Street, each of which is a private way located within the Middlesex Corporate Park," to be recovered by betterments, and the road was repaved in fiscal 2022.



Dunham Road
Plan of Land in Billerica, Mass., owned by the Minuteman Sportsman's Club, Inc. (Raymond Engineering Service, November 18, 1972), 1973 (Plan 116/42)
Dunham Road
Plan of Land in Billerica (Raymond Engineering Service, Raymond J. Garcia, February 22, 1973, rev. March 11, 1975), 1975 (LC Plan 37078-A)

References

  1. Billerica town report 1974: Oct. 21, 1974 special town meeting, Art. 5, gift of lot 3 of the Middlesex Industrial Park (Graham Builders) carried
  2. Billerica town report 1974: Industrial Commission, Industrial Park off Middlesex Pike at Plank St. has five new tenants
  3. Billerica town report 2000: fall 1999 Art. 12, easements for emergency access road from Riverbank Terrace to the Dunham Road Industrial Park area
  4. Billerica town report 2006: emergency access roadway between Dunham Road Extension and Wildcrest Avenue completed
  5. Billerica FY2020 report: June 20, 2020 Art. 25, $2,000,000 for repairs to Dunham Road and Plank Street, private ways