History
The first bridge on the site was known as the Canal Bridge, named after the Middlesex Canal which ran from the Charlestown Mill Pond to Middlesex Village in East Chelmsford Massachusetts; later p/o Lowell. (It was not named after the short Lechmere Canal which is now near the Cambridge side of the bridge, but did not exist at the time.) As an investment, businessman Andrew Craigie purchased the largely undeveloped farmland on the Cambridge side around Lechmere Point from various owners (including Mary Lechmere and heirs) in preparation for building the bridge. The investors incorporated in 1807 with a charter to build a bridge from Leverett Street in the West End, Boston to the eastern end of Lechmere Point. One-third of shares were owned by the Middlesex Canal Corporation.
The bridge opened in 1809, and came to be known as Craigie's Bridge. The construction of the bridge prompted the laying out of roads to the center of Cambridge (now Cambridge Street, running to Harvard Square) and Somerville/Medford (Bridge Street, now Monsignor O'Brien Highway/Massachusetts Route 28). Craigie and associates, who formed the Lechemere Point Corporation, benefited from the building boom that followed, spurred on by their efforts to expand the public street grid. Residential cross streets were constructed and some were named after investors (Otis, Thorndike, and Gore). The bridge was sold to the Hancock Free Bridge Corporation in 1846, and became toll-free on January 30, 1858.
The current bridge was constructed in 1910, along with the dam that turned the lower Charles River from a tidal estuary into a fresh-water basin. It was completed on June 30, and greeted with a two-hour fireworks display that Fourth of July. Thousands of people watching from the new Boston Embankment (the early Charles River Esplanade) which took the place of the former tidal flats.
Construction of the Museum of Science began on the dam in 1948, and finished in 1951.
Read more about this topic: Charles River Dam Bridge
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