Elsie Avenue

Elsie Avenue runs about 2,000 feet along the west bank of the Concord River in the River Pines neighborhood, from the Old Middlesex Turnpike at the site of the old turnpike bridge, northeast past Braemore, Kilsyth, Acanthis, Loon and Hurlbut Roads, and then north to River Street. Its riverside lots were laid out as cottage lots, and several low parcels along it later came into town ownership.

The avenue was laid out on paper in 1927. The plan of River Pines, Unit 2, drawn by R. F. Smith, surveyor, of Boston Road, in May 1927 and recorded on October 4, 1927 (Plan Book 51, Plan 13), shows "Elsie Avenue" leaving the Middlesex Turnpike beside a small "Public Park" at the "Old Bridge Site" and following the river eastward between a row of riverfront lots and the blocks of Braemore Road and Kilsyth Road. No road on this line appears on the older maps. The plan does not say where the name came from. Elsie is a woman's given name, like Leonore, the name of another road on the same plan, but no record found ties either name to a particular person.

Elsie Avenue was a private way for its first quarter century. At the annual meeting of March 12, 1955 the town voted to "accept the laying out of Elsie Avenue about 2,000 feet as a town way" and appropriated $1,800 to improve it, and the town's list of accepted streets printed that year gives "Elsie Ave. 2000 ft. 3-12-55." In October 1989 town meeting voted unanimously to give the Conservation Commission town-owned parcels on Elsie Avenue, to be used "for passive recreation and conservation purposes only," with room for a few cars so that residents could carry canoes to the river. Illegal dumping near the river led the public works department to block off the Old Middlesex Turnpike and Elsie Avenue by 1993. Town meeting voted $300,000 for a water main on River Street and Elsie Avenue on May 4, 1999, and the avenue was repaved in 2014 and again, from Braemore Road to the dead end, in 2018.

References

1. Annual Report 1955: Articles 115 and 116, accept the laying out of Elsie Avenue about 2,000 feet as a town way and $1,800 to improve it
2. Annual Report 1955: appropriations voted at the 1955 annual meeting, Article 116 Elsie Avenue $1,800
3. Annual Report 1955: list of streets accepted by the town, "Elsie Ave. 2000 ft. 3-12-55"
4. Annual Report 1989: Fall Town Meeting transfers town parcels on Elsie Avenue to the Conservation Commission
5. Annual Report 1993: public works blocked off Old Middlesex Turnpike and Elsie Avenue against illegal dumping
6. Annual Report 2001: Article 8 of May 4, 1999, water main installation on River Street and Elsie Avenue, $300,000
7. Annual Report 2014: Elsie Avenue repaved under the Roadway Management Program