Gray Street Bridge

Gray Street Bridge
Gray Street Bridge
Address Gray Street
MACRIS ID BIL.915
Built 1950


The Gray Street bridge carries Gray Street over the Lowell line of the railroad in East Billerica, within the Richardson's Mill local historic district. Gray Street was part of the old Andover road. The Boston and Lowell Railroad, chartered in 1830 and opened in 1835, was surveyed by James F. Baldwin so that it crossed very few roads at grade; the town roads were carried over the cut on bridges instead. In 1939 the town voted that the selectmen act to make the Gray Street bridge "safe for a loading of not less than twelve tons," and in 1947 a hearing at the Lowell Court House asked the County to plan new approaches and a wider bridge. In 1949 Town Meeting voted $18,000 as the town's share, on condition that the Boston and Maine pay 25 percent and Middlesex County 30 percent. The new bridge, a five-span timber trestle 107 feet long with a plank sidewalk on the east side, was formally accepted on September 16, 1950.

The bridge was transferred to the Commonwealth on June 8, 1976. When the state proposed to replace it in the early 1990s, the Billerica Historical Commission reviewed the effect on the Richardson's Mill district and agreed in August 1993 that the replacement would have "no adverse effect." The present bridge, of prestressed concrete slabs, was built in 1996 and the project was concluded in 1997. By Chapter 337 of the Acts of 2012, approved November 29, 2012, it was named the Helen Knight Bridge, for "an environmental and community activist on behalf of the town, whose work led to the remediation of the Iron Horse Park, a declared Superfund site."





References

  1. MACRIS BIL.915
  2. Annual Report 1939: vote to make the Gray Street and High Street bridges safe for twelve tons
  3. Annual Report 1947: hearing on new approaches and a wider bridge on Gray Street
  4. Annual Report 1950: formal acceptance of the Gray Street bridge, Sept. 16, 1950
  5. Annual Report 1976: Special Town Meeting of June 8, 1976 transfers the six railroad bridges to the Commonwealth
  6. Annual Report 1993: Historical Commission review of the Gray Street bridge replacement
  7. Annual Report 1997: the Gray Street bridge replacement concluded
  8. Acts of 2012, Chapter 337: designating the Gray Street bridge as the Helen Knight Bridge