The Middlesex Fells Reservoirs Historic District is a historic district roughly bounded by Pond St., Woodland Rd., I-93, and MA 28 in Stoneham and

Medford, Massachusetts Medford is a city northwest of downtown Boston on the Mystic River in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the time of the 2020 U.S. Census, Medford's population was 59,659. It is home to Tufts University, which has its campus alo ...

. It encompasses a portion of the

Middlesex Fells Reservation Middlesex Fells Reservation, often referred to simply as the Fells, is a public recreation area covering more than in Malden, Medford, Melrose, Stoneham, and Winchester, Massachusetts. The state park surrounds two inactive reservoirs, Spot ...

, a state park managed by the

Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation The Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is a state agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, situated in the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. It is best known for its parks and parkways. The DCR's mission is ...

(DCR). The principal features of the district are three reservoirs and their associated gate houses and pumping stations, which were developed by the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC, predecessor organization to the DCR) starting in the late 19th century. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. The most prominent and visible feature of the district is Spot Pond, a large body of water on the east side of

Interstate 93 Interstate 93 (I-93) is an Interstate Highway in the New England states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont in the United States. Spanning approximately along a north–south axis, it is one of three primary Interstate Highways ...

in Stoneham. The pond was used as a passive reservoir by surrounding towns prior to its acquisition by the MDC. The MDC replaced several town pumping stations with a single station (separately listed on the National Register in 1984), and constructed a gate house adjacent. Also found in the same area on the eastern shore of the pond is the John Bottume House, a 19th-century stone house that now serves as the reservation's visitors center. The MDC also enlarged the pond's capacity, and converted it for use as a storage reservoir providing water to the communities north of Boston. There is a second gatehouse on Spot Pond, at the southern end (straddling the Stoneham-Medford line). The MDC also constructed two smaller reservoirs within the Fells. The Bear Hill Reservoir, located just west of I-93 near the summit of Bear Hill, has a capacity of 2 million gallons, and was created in 1902-3 with the construction of two concrete dams and a gatehouse. The Fells Reservoir is located in the southeastern part of the reservation. Because it was sited in existing parkland, it was given a deliberately naturalistic appearance. It was designed by the noted

Olmsted Brothers The Olmsted Brothers company was a landscape architectural firm in the United States, established in 1898 by brothers John Charles Olmsted (1852–1920) and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (1870–1957), sons of the landscape architect Frederick Law ...

firm, and its gatehouse was built to a design by Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge.

References

{{Stoneham, Massachusetts Medford, Massachusetts Stoneham, Massachusetts Historic districts in Middlesex County, Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Medford, Massachusetts Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts

See also

References