Highway Superintendent

The Highway Superintendent is the town officer in charge of building, repairing and plowing Billerica's roads and bridges. The office began as the Highway Surveyor chosen at town meeting; David L. Mason held it in the mid-1880s. From 1886 to 1891 the selectmen were chosen highway surveyors themselves and hired a Superintendent of Highways to direct the work. From 1894 the town had an appointed Superintendent of Streets, George C. Crosby, and in 1897 it voted not to choose a highway surveyor at all. In 1899 the town went back to electing a single Highway Surveyor on the annual ballot. The office was often contested, and Edgar F. Twombly won it five separate times between 1904 and 1930. Under a special act of the legislature the selectmen became a Board of Public Works, and in March 1933 they appointed a Superintendent of Public Works; the elected Highway Surveyor ended with Fred R. Lewis, who then served as the appointed Superintendent of Streets. Since then the post has been an appointed job in the Department of Public Works, titled Superintendent of Streets, Highway Superintendent and today Superintendent of Highways, head of the DPW Highway Division.