1875

• A study  is launched to research Boston’s pollution and water contamination problems believed to be causing the city’s high death rates.

1875

• Boston Mayor Henry L. Pierce appoints a commission of experts to engineer a plan for Boston’s sewage. One of these experts was Ellis S. Chesbrough, Boston’s first city engineer (1851-1855) who later went on to gain prestige as the engineer behind Chicago’s industrious sewage system.

1877

• Construction of Boston Main Drainage System begins.

1879

• Overseen by architect, George Albert Clough, landfilling and construction for pumping station begins on Calf Pasture peninsula.
• Docks constructed for coal ships to off load at the end of the original Calf Pasture. The dock was dredged, stone seawalls constructed, wharf built in front of one seawall; long pier built out to protect  and support sewer running out from pumping station.
• Tornado causes $1,000 worth of damage to construction site (1)

1883

• Calf Pasture Pumping Station completed

1884

• Station officially begins pumping on New Year’s Day

1889

• Metropolitan Sewerage System (MSS) formed to address parts of Boston lying outside of the service area of BMDS

1880s-1930s

• Filling in area of Calf Pasture – created Columbus Park; Day Boulevard; Morrissey Boulevard, between Calf Pasture and Savin Hill; across mouth of Savin Hall Bay (maps)

1919

• Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) created to oversee the MSS (now DCR); Boston Main Drainage System still owned by the city

1940

• Leavitt and Worthington pumps in Calf Pasture Pumping Station dismantled and removed (due to a crack in one of them) à System changed from steam to electric power

1946

• Coal room roof collapses, section is demolished because it is no longer needed (no coal was being stored anymore due to the switch to electricity).

1953

• Columbia Point housing project built as one of nation’s first public housing projects

1952

• Nut Island Wastewater Treatment Plant opens

1968

• Deer Island Treatment Plant opens
• Calf Pasture Pumping Station closes – maintained as a backup for the Deer Island Plant during wet weather

1971

• Construction of University of Massachusetts Boston begins

1975

• “The Pumphouse: A Proposal to Recycle the Calf Pasture Pumping Station at Columbia Point as a Community/University Center” is published

1977

• Ownership and operating responsibility for sewer system transferred from the City of Boston to the Boston Water and Sewer Commission (BWSC)

1979

• The John F. Kennedy Library is formally dedicated

1985

• Possession, control and operation of MDC Water and Sewage Divisions granted to Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA)

1986

• Massachusetts Archive building constructed on Columbia Point

1990

• Calf Pasture Pumping Station building receives National Register of Historic Places designation

1995

• Dorchester residents create a tourism brochure to educate visitors of interesting local spots, includes the Calf Pasture Pumping Station

2007

• Historic Boston Inc. tells the Boston Globe that the organization is preparing a “reuse feasibility study” on the building

2011

• UMass Boston acquires Calf Pasture Pumping Station – in exchange for $2.1 million in scholarships for Boston Public School students
• Obsolete electrical transformers were removed from the building, new fencing installed, and debris, trees, and shrubs taken out

2.  Kennison, Karl R. “Sewage Works Development in the Massachusetts Metropolitan District.” Sewage and Industrial Wastes 22.4 (1950): 477-89. JSTOR. Web. 06 Mar. 2013.

3.  Marwell, Stuart. Calf Pasture Pumping Station. N.p.: n.p.

4.  National Register of Historic Places, Calf Pasture Pumping Station Complex.

5.  Roessner, Jane. A Decent Place to Live: From Columbia Point to Harbor Point: A Community History. Boston: Northeastern UP, 2000.

6.  Taylor, Earl. “Calf Pasture Pumping Station.” Dorchester Atheneum.

Footnotes:

1. “Sudden Destruction: A Terrible Tornado Along the Whole Atlantic Coast.” The Washington Post, 08/20/1879.