The Chestnut Hill Reservoir & Water Works ≈ A Visual History

From 1868 to the mid-20th century, the Chestnut Hill Reservoir and Water Works, together with its park setting, was central to the evolution of Boston’s supply of remarkably clean, minimally processed water. Thus, it was also central to the city’s growth and prosperity, through progressive landfilling operations and annexations, which that abundant pure water allowed. The reservoir was supplied by a network of progressively longer aqueducts and larger outlying reservoirs that evolved into the country’s first metropolitan water, sewer, and park system. After Chestnut Hill want out of active service, there were decades of decay and then, though a lengthy communal stakeholder process, a rebirth, preserving its three historic buildings and creating a new Metropolitan Waterworks Museum, that preserves three huge historic steam pumping engines and tells the story of this key monument of Boston’s late 19th century “Golden Age.” This heavily illustrated, 187-page, volume tells that story though a multitude of historic photos, illustrations, and maps. Read more