Lakeview Drive

Lakeview Drive runs along the south shore of Nuttings Lake from Mallard Street east to Eliot Street. Until about 1990 it was Clifton Street, often called Clifton Avenue.

The street first appears on Nuttings Lake Park Extension Plan E, drawn in May 1915 by C. A. Thayer, engineer, of Providence, Rhode Island, and recorded April 14, 1916 in Plan Book 33, Plan 46. Plan E shows Clifton Street along the shore, with Eliot and Beach Streets running back from it across Marshall Street and Bolton Road. Plan G of December 1916 (Plan Book 35, Plan 76) shows Clifton Street running to Main Street, the street now called Mallard Street. No record explains the name Clifton. The street guide of 1930 to 1931 gives "Clifton (south side Nuttings lake) from Columbia road to Main," next to the older Clifton Street in North Billerica.

The town accepted it in stages. The annual meeting of February 11, 1939 voted to accept "the street known as Clifton Street or Clifton Avenue in the Nuttings Lake section," first striking out the words "Clifton Street" so that the vote reads "Clifton Avenue." On February 9, 1946 the town voted to accept "Clifton Avenue from Main to Elliot 750 feet," and after the selectmen laid out "Clifton Street" with sixteen other Nuttings Lake streets on August 26, 1946, a special town meeting on October 28, 1946 accepted the laying out so that water mains could be laid. In 1942 boulders and ledge were removed and the road was graveled, and in 1943 "Clifton Avenue" was given a "tar prime-coat ... entire length," the first record of a tarred surface. The town's index of accepted streets, printed in 1956, gives "Clifton Ave. (N. L.)" accepted February 11, 1939 and "Main St. to Eliot St." on February 9 and October 28, 1946.

In 1969 the town accepted a gift of Lots 3 to 9 of Plan E on Clifton Street for a public bathing beach, the "Clifton Street Beach" of later reports. The street was renamed Lakeview Drive, after its view of the lake, in the street renaming of 1988 to 1991 that removed duplicate names; the change is not printed in the reports, but Clifton Street at the lake last appears in 1978 and Lakeview Drive is named by 1995, when the town discontinued "Beach Street ... from Lakeview Drive to Nutting Lake" and kept it as a drain and utility easement. Lakeview Drive is not among the roads of the 1831 map accepted in 2016.

References

1. Annual town meeting, Feb. 11, 1939, Article 35: accepted "the street known as Clifton Street or Clifton Avenue in the Nuttings Lake section," amended to read Clifton Avenue
2. 1943 highway report: Clifton Avenue given gravel fill and a tar prime coat its entire length
3. Annual town meeting, Feb. 9, 1946, Article 50: accepted Main Street to Clifton Avenue and Clifton Avenue from Main to Elliot, 750 feet
4. Selectmen, Aug. 26, 1946: Clifton Street and sixteen other Nuttings Lake streets laid out as town ways for water mains
5. Special town meeting, Oct. 28, 1946, Article 30: accepted the laying out of the Nuttings Lake streets including Clifton Street
6. Streets Accepted by the Town of Billerica (printed 1956): Clifton Ave. (N. L.) accepted 2-11-39 and Main St. to Eliot St. 2-9-46 and 10-28-46
7. 1969 town meeting, Article 44: gift of Lots 3-9 of Nuttings Lake Park Plan E on Clifton Street for a public bathing beach
8. 1995 fall town meeting: Beach Street discontinued from Lakeview Drive to Nutting Lake