Nuttings Lake Causeway

The Nuttings Lake Causeway carries the Middlesex Turnpike across Nuttings Lake, the old Nutting's Pond, between Lake Street and Massachusetts Avenue in South Billerica. It was built with the turnpike. The turnpike company was chartered in June 1805, and in 1806 the General Court let it change its route "from a point in Bedford, crossing Nutting's Pond," in a straight line through the town; the road was open by about 1810. The causeway divides the pond into two parts, joined by a culvert and later a short bridge under the road. The town's report for 1895 counted "the causeway at Nutting's Pond" among the most extensive highway work of the year.

In 1913 the town was asked for $300 "for the purpose of widening and raising the culvert under the Middlesex Turnpike Road, connecting the two sections of Nuttings Pond," and the article came back in 1914, asking for a committee of three to take bids for the work. A committee was named for the culvert in 1915, and that year the highway surveyor dug up and relaid a large culvert 40 feet long. In 1917 the town voted $500 for plans and $2,000 for "repairing Middlesex Turnpike across Nuttings Pond," under a committee of Edgar P. Sellew, George P. Greenwood and Alexander H. Mitchell. They found "the foundation of the turnpike, across the pond" in good condition and the roadway "30 feet or more in width," and instead of widening it they built "a stone culvert of ten feet clear width and approximately five feet high ... with a wooden covering," raised the road about three feet at the culvert with two hundred feet of retaining wall, and fenced the sides with iron posts and wooden rails set in cement. The town reports of the 1920s call the opening the Nuttings Lake Bridge.

The bridge was replanked and the wall rebuilt and capped with cement in 1931. In 1932, with State and County aid, "the entire distance across Nuttings Lake was filled with gravel to widen the road"; owing to the muddy bottom "it was necessary to fill two or three times in places before a solid foundation could be obtained." The road was graveled and tarred 28 feet wide, and the bridge was rebuilt by "pointing old abutments, rebuilding end walls and replacing old wooden floor with reinforced concrete slabs and copings," with 1,860 feet of riprap and 2,520 feet of cable guard rail. After the road from Concord Road to the causeway was rebuilt under Chapter 90 in 1956, work began on the causeway itself; a new culvert was put in in 1957, and the causeway was rebuilt in 1958. In 1961 the town voted $3,300 for a sidewalk "from the Causeway to the Walkway of the Vining School." A 1978 proposal to move the sewer force main where it crossed "the culvert on Middlesex Turnpike at the causeway" was voted down.