Pinegrove Avenue

Pinegrove Avenue is a short street in Pinehurst running west from Boston Road, opposite the old Pinehurst post office, between Autumn Street and Melody Lane. No recorded plan of it has been found. The oldest house on it is dated by the assessors to 1916, and by 1928 a water main had been laid in it, at a cost of $491.35 carried in the water department's tables from that year. In its report for 1928 the Board of Health wrote that it had "provided the Pinehurst section with a public dump which is centrally located at the end of Pinegrove Ave. off Boston Rd. opposite the Pinehurst Post Office."

The name is descriptive and fits the neighborhood, which took its name from the pines of Pinehurst Park; no record says whose choice it was. It should not be confused with a Pine Grove Avenue near Bowers Street off Andover Road (named in a 1985 article to discontinue Bowers Street "from Andover Road to Pine Grove Avenue") or with a Pine Grove Street shown near Gray and Canal Streets on a historic district map; these are different streets.

The warrant for 1929 asked the town to accept Pinegrove Avenue for about 1,000 feet, and on February 9, 1929 it was "so voted that the Town accept Pinegrove Ave. as a Town way for a distance of 500 feet." An article of 1931 to extend the accepted part by 500 feet was dismissed. In 1936 and 1937 articles proposed buying "the corner lot between the corner of Pinegrove Avenue and the Pinehurst Post Office" for a branch library to be built as a W.P.A. project.

The street was tar patched and tarred in 1940, given an "Asphalt Armor coat" with pea stone rolled in for its entire length in 1943, asphalt sealed in 1947 and 1949, and patched and asphalt sealed for 500 feet in 1953. Articles of 1950 and 1955 proposed rezoning the corner of Pinegrove Avenue and Boston Road for business, and an article of 1970 proposed taking a parcel on Pinegrove Avenue "for the purpose of providing off-street parking in the Pinehurst commercial area." Pinegrove Avenue is not among the roads of the 1831 town map accepted by the town in 2016.

References

1. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1928: Board of Health public dump at the end of Pinegrove Ave. opposite the Pinehurst Post Office
2. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1929: town accepts Pinegrove Ave. as a town way for 500 feet
3. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1936: warrant article for a Pinehurst library on the corner lot at Pinegrove Avenue and the Pinehurst Post Office
4. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1943: Pinegrove Avenue given an asphalt armor coat with pea stone for its entire length
5. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1956: list of streets accepted by the town, Pinegrove Ave. 500 ft., 2-9-29