Mallard Street

Mallard Street runs north from Eliot Street, at the corner where Reardon Road begins, to Lakeview Drive on the south shore of Nutting Lake, crossing Gage Street, Day Street, Bolton Road and Marshall Street. For most of its history it was Main Street. It comes from Plan G of Nuttings Lake Park Extension, dated December 1916 and recorded in Plan Book 35, Plan 76, which shows "Main St." running from the lake south through the meeting of Eliot, School and Winter Streets toward Manning Road, the spine of that section of Nuttings Lake Park, and the directory of 1931 describes Main Street as running "from Nuttings lake southerly to near Manning rd." The part north of Eliot Street is today's Mallard Street.

A 1938 article to carry the town water "through Elliot Street and to Main Street" was referred to the selectmen, and the main was laid in 1939 by the W.P.A. At the annual meeting of February 9, 1946 the town voted to accept "Main Street from Elliot Street to Clifton Avenue 1,000 feet," and on October 28, 1946 a special town meeting accepted its laying out with the other Nutting Lake streets; the town's list of accepted streets gives "Main St. -- From Eliot St. to Clifton Ave. 2-9-46 -- 10-28-46." Gage Street was accepted "from Main Street to Baker Street" in 1949 and Baker Street "300 ft. west from Main St." in 1953. Main Street was patched in 1952 and "sealed" in 1969, and Day Street was accepted in 1973 "from Main Street easterly." It is not one of the roads of the 1831 map accepted in 2016.

The name Main Street was still in use in 1973. By the fall of 2001 the town's warrants call the street Mallard Street, and the town accepted Bolton Road "from Beech Street to Mallard Street" in 2002; Mallard Street was repaved in fiscal 2003. The change was probably one of the 214 made by the selectmen's Street Re-naming Committee, which worked from February 1988 to its last effective date of January 7, 1991 to end duplicate and confusing street names, but only the changes of 1988 were printed and this one is not among them. No record explains the choice of Mallard.

References

1. Billerica annual report 1939: W.P.A. water main via Pine Road, Thayer, Marshall and Eliot Streets to Main Street, Nuttings Lake
2. Billerica annual report 1946: town accepts Main Street from Elliot Street to Clifton Avenue, 1,000 feet, Feb. 9, 1946
3. Billerica annual report 1946: special town meeting of Oct. 28 accepts the laying out of Main Street and other Nutting Lake streets
4. Billerica annual report 1956: streets accepted by the town, Main St. from Eliot St. to Clifton Ave. 2-9-46 and 10-28-46
5. Billerica annual report 1973: Day Street accepted April 12, 1973, from Main Street easterly to dead end
6. Billerica annual report 2002: special town meeting accepts Bolton Road from Beech Street to Mallard Street
7. Billerica annual report FY2003: Mallard St. repaved under the pavement management program
8. Billerica annual report 1990: Street Re-naming Committee report, 214 street names changed 1988 to 1991