Mill Street
From Worcester Activist wiki
Also SPEEDWAY AND LYONS POND
The widest street in Worcester is Mill street. For a half mile it stretches out to a 150 foot width-the Speedway.
Mill street had two golden periods-the days of the mills and when the horses raced for glory.
Coes Pond, adjacent to Mill street, has a natural look, but is an artificial pond. Tatnuck Brook or Half-Way River, was the only water there in early Worcester.
As settlers settled, they sought water power to run mills-saw, grist, woolen, satinet. The brook was dammed at least seven times before the tired waters were released.
There was the Blue Mill, or Thayer’s Mill. Another held back Tatnuck Reservoir. Patch’s Pond, below this, had a saw and grist mill. Farther down was a woolen mill. Below this was the dam that made Coes Pond.
It was first called Lyon’s Pond because the Lyon family owned a large farm on the east side. Part of the land was bought by the Coes brothers. They threw a dam across Tatnuck Brook in 1865.
Worcester was a great horse town when the animal was king of the road. For 35 years, sportsmen raced their mounts on Main street, from May to Chandler, and from the late 1870’s to about 1906, on Park avenue.
Mill Street Speedway was built for horse racing. For years it was the main attraction in Worcester, especially in Winter.
Here business men were drawn for fast brushes in matinee races. Here under the taut reins of expert drivers hurtled Peeler Patron, pacer, one of the best side-wheelers on the snowpath; Cozad (1.10¼), always fighting for the best of the race; Laundry Boy, full of trot all the time and the gray mare, Jeannette, a good goer.
Ransom C. Taylor, Charles G. Washburn, Dr. E.E. Frost, Dr. Edward H. Kendrick, Frank L. Allen, F.B. Knowles, E.S. Pierce and many others made their mark-and left.
Demon drivers in electric runabouts and later models using flashboilers smoked up the Speedway at 20 miles the hour. But auto racers wanted thrills with hills.
“Dead Horse Hill”-between Leicester and Worcester-became the chosen course. Mill street became popular with beginning drivers. Bucking vehicles, foolishly halted at wrong intervals; storming husbands and weeping wives at the wheel are still a frequent sight.
Mill street-running from Main street northwest to Pleasant street-first appeared as such in 1851. It takes its name, of course, from the early mills in that section.
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
