Laurel Street
From Worcester Activist wiki
Also CULVERT ST.
“How shall the city be supplied with pure water?” asked Mayor Isaac Davis of Worcester in his inaugural speech on Jan. 4, 1858.
He answered himself: “Almost every citizen can procure good pure water at this own door, by digging 15 or 20 feet.”
Through 428 miles of piping under Worcester streets today course more than seven and a half billion gallons of water each year. Were he alive today, Mayor Davis would call it a miracle.
But the miracle was made by man. Earlier Worcester residents weren’t able to turn a tap in kitchen or bathroom. There weren’t any taps. There wasn’t any water. And come to think of it-there weren’t any bathrooms.
Settlers, of course, dug wells or used natural springs. Settlers seldom bathed. There was a theory that too much water was bad for complexions.
The theory was most popular in Winter.
Worcester’s first water supply can be traced to March 2, 1798, when the Legislature authorized Daniel Goulding “to conduct water to subterraneous pipes from a certain spring in his own land…for the accommodation of himself and some other inhabitants…”
Until 1845, this was the only source of water supply other than private well or spring. In that year, Worcester Aqueduct Co. was formed to supply water from Bell Pond. The city purchased the rights and property three years later; began to extend the service.
The supply often failed. Whenever a fire broke out, consumers could tell.
Their water wouldn’t pour. Drought once stopped the entire supply.
More private companies then were formed. Ethan Allen laid pipes under parts of Lincoln and Main streets. The Rice Aqueduct supplied part of Grafton and Franklin streets. Paine Spring Aqueduct in 1863 watered 125 families and shops on Summer, Main, Thomas, Union and School streets.
Laurel street, running from Eastern avenue west to Summer street, first appeared as such in 1847. Before that it was Culvert street-taking its name from a culvert over a picturesque brook that trickled down a hill and was piped for water supply.
The first hydrants were built about 1845, using Bell Pond water. On Jan. 7, 1846, at 8 a.m., someone yelled “Fire!” Flames began to flare from Myrtle street.
“The Fire Department brought their fire engines to the spot with their accustomed promptness,” stated the first annual report of Worcester Aqueduct Company in 1846, “but they found themselves mere spectators of the unaided success of a new rival in their vocation.”
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
