Town of Wakefield history

In 1817, Tudor's first commercial icehouse was established in 1817 on Fresh Pond in Cambridge.

The Federal style house at 316 Main Street (1822) was built for Benjamin Brown Wiley.

Thirty years later, in 1846, they took a vote to adopt a new name with the following results: for Winthrop 71; for South Reading 35; for Florence 6; for Lakeville 4; for Vernon and Greenville 1 each.

The building was used as the first home of Wakefield High School in 1847.

Wakefield's ice industry was born in 1849, when the Quannapowitt Railroad Company was organized in order to move ice from storage on the shores of the Lake to the main line of the railroad.

After a small fire in its basement in the 1950s, the town razed the building and moved town government to the old high school (the Lafayette Building). The $95,000 damage to the building was paid by the insurance company; that sum was exceeded by the cost of the move. It was dedicated in 1871 and sold to the town for the sum of $1.

The First Baptist Church (1872) on Common Street is a fine example of the Italianate style.

“The Butler Building,” built in 1875 is the last remaining three story brick building on this block.

The Lower Common was originally called the Park when it was added to the town’s formal park lands in 1884.

Wakefield’s iconic Bandstand was built as the “Music Pavilion” on the Lower Common in 1885.

In 1890, Morrill purchased Hartshorne's Meadow and, with J. Reed Whipple, erected a small icehouse at the southwest corner of the lake in order to supply ice to Whipple's Boston hotel.

Young’s paper was successful and when he decided to sell it in 1900, it was ultimately bought by Harris M. Dolbeare, a publisher dedicated to high quality and to keeping up with printing technology which was to change rapidly in the next decades.

The Upper Common is now the home of monuments to those who served their nation in the armed forces, including the Soldiers and Sailors Civil War Monument (1902) donated by Harriet N. Flint.

The Wakefield YMCA was founded on February 5, 1903.

The Renaissance Revival Building at 9 Albion Street was constructed in 1910 to serve as the town’s Post Office.

Turn back toward Main Street, walking past the Wakefield Item Company building (1912) at 26 Albion Street.

Formerly part of the land on the Richardson estate, the Theatre Block was developed in the 1920s.

Junius Beebe and his family donated funds for the construction of the Lucius Beebe Memorial Library (1923) as a monument to his father.

The remains of the Morrill-Atwood Company were sold in 1926 to Albert Anderson, who would eventual install electrical ice-making equipment.

Local architect Edward Bridge designed the Post Office (1935) at 321 Main Street.

The company was purchased in 1946 by the Metropolitan Ice Company, which used its buildings only for storage.

In 1986 the metropolitan county lost its administrative powers, and its constituent boroughs became autonomous administrative units, or unitary authorities.

The last vestige of an ice industry building remained on Spaulding Street until 1988, when it was condemned by the Town of Wakefield, and demolished, after the building was documented by the Wakefield Historical Commission.