USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, from the year 1876 to the year 1916 > Part 10
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on North Street in 1910 and of the Union Square Theater on Union Street in 1912.
The disbanding of the Berkshire Musical Festival Association, in 1895, left the city without an organized agency for the promo- tion of concerts; but in 1897 this need was met by the formation of the Pittsfield Symphony Society, under whose auspices a symphony orchestra was assembled, with Fred J. Liddle as di- rector, and a series of meritorious concerts given annually. The orchestra made its initial appearance on December eleventh, 1897, at Central Hall, and about twenty concerts were enjoyed before the activities of the society were suspended in 1904. Productions of oratorios and choral compositions, always popular undertakings in Pittsfield, gratified the local public especially under the leadership of Charles F. Smith at the Methodist Church on Fenn Street, while to private enterprise were due pro- fessional visits to Pittsfield of such celebrated musical artists as Mme. Schumann-Heink, Paderewski, Kreisler, and John Mc- Cormack, who were heard at the armory and at the Colonial.
Among social diversions, the annual charity ball was con- spicuous, arranged originally for the benefit of the Union for Home Work. Pittsfield's first "charity ball" was held at Cen- tral Hall on the evening of April eighth, 1896. In order to assure its success, many prominent citizens, including the mayor, co-operated in preliminary committees; and a social commenta- tor on the period might consider it worth while to note that the ball encountered well-intentioned and public opposition from two pulpits. It was repeated for several years on an elaborate scale for its original financial object, and afterward for the bene- fit of the Day Nursery Association and the House of Mercy.
During the years which we are now surveying, the two hos- pitals, as well, indeed, as the benevolent spirit of the entire city, were put to a very rigorous and abrupt test on December twenty- ninth, 1910, when occurred the most severe disaster in Pittsfield's history. On that day, a boiler exploded in the power house of an ice company, standing on the north shore of Morewood Lake, near the railroad. The hour was in the morning, and the work- men had assembled in the engine house, in order to be placed on the pay roll for the day. Fourteen men were killed instantly,
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including the engineer in charge, three died afterward of their injuries, and twenty were painfully but not mortally hurt. Of the local surgeons and nurses, and of the executive forces of both hospitals, prompt, skillful, and trying labor was demanded and obtained; nor was other help lacking. The city council met at once to devise plans for the relief of those in danger of destitution because of the calamity, and the people for this pur- pose soon subscribed a fund of $10,000. The presiding magis- trate at the legal inquest did not find that the unlawful act of any person then alive contributed to the death of the seventeen victims.
A wave of popular excitement of a different sort agitated Pittsfield in 1900. In the early morning of August twentieth, the police department was notified that the residence of Robert L. Fosburg, at the corner of Tyler Street and Dalton Avenue, had been broken into by three masked intruders, and that his daughter had been shot and killed. The fire alarm was at once sounded, thus placing at the disposal of the authorities a large number of active men who knew the city well, and many of whom were special police officers. A search was commenced, not only of the city itself but of the surrounding hills. It was maintained for several days and nights, it engaged the services of about five hundred armed volunteers, besides those of Pinker- ton detectives and the state and local police, and it was a unique episode in the city's experience.
No persons were discovered whose whereabouts on the night of August twentieth were not satisfactorily determined. Sub- sequently the grand jury brought an indictment against Miss Fosburg's brother, Robert L. Fosburg, Jr., for the unpremedi- tated killing of his sister. The case came to trial at Pittsfield in July, 1901, and was a newspaper sensation of some notoriety. After hearing the evidence, the presiding justice, declining to al- low the case to go to the jury, directed the discharge of the de- fendant. The identity of the slayer of Miss Fosburg has never been legally determined.
A sweeping disaster by fire menaced the city at midnight of January twenty-seventh, 1912; and in the early morning hours of the following day two large blocks on the east side of North
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Street, immediately south of the railroad bridge, had been burned to the ground. One of these was the Academy of Music building. Its upper stories, planned originally for a theater, were palatable food for voracious flames, while the contents of some shops on the ground floor, in which paint, ammunition, high explosives, and barrels of spirits were variously stored, caused the fire to be peculiarly hazardous. In all probability, the railroad alone prevented the conflagration from spreading northward; but it was confined on the south and east by the firemen, professional and amateur, who worked effectively in the zero weather and with appliances not then adequate for such a task. The total loss to the owners and tenants of the buildings was estimated at $300,000.
The glories of the old-time firemen's muster, dear to the volunteer firemen of other days, were vividly revived in Septem- ber of 1895. For three days, beginning on September twenty- fourth, the State Firemen's Association met in convention at Pittsfield. The occasion was celebrated with extensive hospitali- ty, by a gathering of veteran and active volunteer firemen from many towns, by parades and competitions, and by the dedica- tion of the city's new fire department house at the head of School Street.
Of the people in any American town or city where the social traditions of a large volunteer fire department are still active, anxiety to acquit themselves with credit as public hosts is charac- teristic. It was certainly characteristic for many years of Pitts- field men, whatever may have been the inspiration; and often was the same hospitable desire displayed also by the women of the town and city, especially by the women of the several church societies and of the relief corps auxiliary to the Grand Army posts. When the community as a whole was called upon to en- tertain a number of visitors, the usual response from Pittsfield was willing, quick, and general, and a zealous wish, in vernacular phrase, "to do the thing right" seems to have been prevalent and dominant. The people were not averse, among themselves, to consider this trait with a good deal of justifiable pride, and to insist upon its manifestation.
It was quite natural, then, that during the locally prosperous
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and optimistic years following 1900 the city's public celebrations were laboriously and thoughtfully prepared. The custom of providing a huge municipal Christmas tree in the Park was ini- tiated in 1914. The observances of the national holiday on the Fourth of July had been somewhat haphazard, but in 1909 they began to be more carefully planned events. The Merchants' Association, in 1909, organized a celebration of the Fourth which attracted to the city about thirty thousand strangers, to be animated by parades, a balloon race, athletic contests, and an exhibition of fireworks. Thereafter the day was similarly distinguished annually, at a later date under the auspices of the Board of Trade and partly with the judicious design to provide safe and sane entertainment for a popular festival which cus- tomarily had kept doctors at work over maimed victims of pa- triotic fervor expressed by firecrackers and toy cannons.
By far the most elaborate and important municipal celebra- tion in the history of Pittsfield began on July second, 1911, and commemorated the 150th anniversary of the incorporation of the town. Its proceedings, which continued for three days, shall be the subject of another chapter, but here it seems to be appro- priate to say that the preparation and the execution of the plans for this event were characterized by that hospitable public spirit, which, whenever properly called upon, always unified the people of the city.
Leaving aside political questions and those incident to the administration of municipal affairs, the dispute in 1906 con- cerning the location of a federal building for a post office sur- passed in vigor any other difference of public opinion which per- turbed the city during the first twenty-five years of its existence. The post office accommodations in the Berkshire Life Insurance Company's building had become notoriously inadequate, and it was known that the authorities at Washington were meditating a change of quarters. Among the citizens, two energetic fac- tions at once came in conflict, one desirous that the office, with increased facilities, should be retained where it was, and the other strenuously urging that it be moved to the Mills building, on the east side of North Street to the north of the railroad bridge. The contest was devoid neither of acerbity nor of
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humor, as when rival Pittsfield delegations to Washington, each supposedly clandestine, met unexpectedly on the very threshold of the postmaster-general. It assumed another phasc when Congress made an appropriation for a federal building in the city, and when the postal department invited offers of land for its site. Various owners of real estate then submitted nine loca- tions, lying in a zone which extended from the south side of West Street northward to Kent Avenue.
The ensuing discussion between "the north-enders and the south-enders" is now significant chiefly for the light which its arguments may cast upon the physical development of the city in 1906. The north-end party asserted that the center of popu- lation was at the line of Madison Avenue, that only one business structure of importance had been erected south of the Park for forty years, and that to establish the post office near the Park would "retard the growth of the city, forcing its centralization to a point from which it was persistently growing"; while the other faction was attached to the theory that Park Square was likely to be the permanent center of the city's cardinal activities, and that the presence there of large financial institutions, the city hall, and the junction of the main lines of street railways, prohibited the removal of the post office to a considerable dis- tance.
In October of 1906, the postal department expressed its preference for a site on the corner of Fenn Street and an extension of Allen Street, provided the city's holdings therein could be se- cured at a price which might be entertained. On November twelfth, 1906, the city council voted to make the necessary ar- rangements, which involved not only the sale of a schoolhouse lot, but also the moving of the schoolhouse westward, and the dedication of land adjacent to highway uses. The result was more satisfactory than compromises usually are. The corner stone of the new federal building was laid in 1910; and the post office began business there on January first, 1911.
Three years later, on August twenty-third, 1914, the public was gratified by the opening of a new railroad station on West Street. The mayor had appointed a committee, composed of Zenas Crane, John A. Spoor, and John C. Crosby, to confer with
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the railroad authorities, and urge upon them the advisability of supplying the city with a station suitable to its size and in- creased importance as a railroad center. The triangular building which had served for forty years was obviously outgrown and outdated, and the committee's object was achieved. The New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company, having ac- quired the former Burbank Hotel property, broke ground on that site in 1913 for a new station, and upon its completion razed the veteran structure nearby.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CONDUCT OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, 1891-1916
U 'NTIL the twentieth century, the inhabitants of American cities seem rarely to have concerned themselves with theories of municipal government. Municipal administra- tion was popularly measured not by its method but by what it visibly and tangibly produced. A scheme of city government, which unavoidably wasted time, effort, and even some of the taxpayers' money, might often pass uncriticized, if only it yielded to the people at large an ordinary supply of physical conveniences; and the principal, or at least the primary, test of the conduct of municipal affairs was commonly applied by a count of the city's material possessions.
The public equipment bequeathed in 1891 by the town and the fire district to the city of Pittsfield was competent. The police and fire departments were efficient. The waterworks were in good condition and financially so situated that their indebted- ness was no burden. Serviceable sidewalks had been newly built, and the street lighting system was sufficient. The care of the poor was suitably administered. The town sustained in part an excellent public library. The education supplied by the public schools was commensurate with the popular desire. The indebtedness of town and fire district, which was assumed by the city, was $456,128.25. The taxable valuation was $10,292,696.
In some respects, however, the municipal equipment of 1891 was defective. The precise locations of many streets were legally indefinite, and the engineering records of the town and fire district were incomplete. There was dissatisfaction with the existing machinery for the assessment of taxes, which was de- nounced as out-of-date and inexact. It was necessary at once to rearrange and partly to rebuild the town hall, of which the
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town in 1882 had acquired sole ownership by purchase, for $10,000, from the successors to the rights therein of Lemuel Pomeroy. More conspicuous was the necessity for improving the condition of the business streets; most conspicuous was the vital need of new sewers.
In 1890, a joint committee of the town and the fire district had obtained the passage by the legislature of an "Act to au- thorize the City of Pittsfield to construct a system of sewerage, and to provide for the payment therefor". The voters of Pitts- field, at the election of December second, 1890, gave to this measure their emphatic approval, and under its provisions work began without delay. A board of sewer commissioners was im- mediately empowered, of which the members were John H. Manning, Charles W. Kellogg, and James L. Bacon. They began, in the summer of 1891, to execute plans prepared by Ernest W. Bowditch, of Boston, the engineer employed by the joint committee above mentioned. The proposed system was endorsed by the state's board of health.
Two main trunk sewers were prescribed. One of them was to run south from a point on Burbank Street, near the jail, to Elm Street, thence to follow the line of the river to an outfall a short distance south of Pomeroy Avenue. The other was to begin at Alder Street and follow approximately the west branch of the Housatonic to the same place of discharge into the river. This outlet was to be closed not later than the year 1900, and the sewage to be thereafter disposed of by the method known as intermittent filtration.
Ground was broken in 1891 for the eastern trunk sewer, and the western was commenced in 1892. The laying of numerous laterals kept pace as closely as possible with the construction of the main lines. The task was considerable, and it made the city first acquainted with large numbers of Italian laborers. At the end of the working season of 1893, the energetic commis- sioners had directed the building of nineteen miles of sewer, and the expenditure of $274,000. During the twenty-four years between 1867 and 1891, the construction cost to the town and fire district of their sewers and main drains had been less than $100,000.
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By authority of legislative enactment at Boston in 1895, the local board of public works assumed, in May of that year, the powers and duties exercised by the sewer commissioners. The intermittent filtration beds were not completed until 1902, when they were placed in operation near the river about two miles southeast of the original outfall of the trunk sewers, and the sewage was forced thereto by a pumping plant. In 1915, the new sewer system, having year by year been extended and en- larged, represented a cost of about $860,000.
The improvement of the central streets was attempted by the city with similar promptness, but here permanent results were not so speedily evident. The method in use was that of macadamizing, and the town authorities had been trying to accomplish the impossible task, in the words of the first mayor's inaugural address, of "compacting a road bed so as to bear the weight of a loaded wagon of from four to six tons, having wheels with narrow tires, by the use of a road roller weighing not over eight tons". The city's first board of public works immediately bought a heavy steam roller, and used for macadamizing the main highways a more suitable material than the flinty rock of the eastern hills, of which the town had long availed itself; nevertheless, the condition of the business streets was not gen- erally held to be satisfactory. The mayor in 1903 felt justified in declaring to the city council that "our principal business thoroughfares are today in practically the same condition in which they were twenty years ago". Indeed, no subject in the field of public utilities has been so perplexing and so chronic a problem to successive administrations of town and city.
For several years immediately prior to 1902, delay in paving the streets had been counseled with apparent wisdom, because of the constant laying of new sewers, water and gas pipes, and car tracks; but at the municipal election of that year the follow- ing referendum was submitted to the voters: "Shall a system of street paving be commenced in this city in 1903?" The referen- dum received 3,077 affirmative votes to 717 in the negative. So earnest were the voters, that, at the same time, they some- what confusedly registered by ballot their approval of bonding the city in the sum of $100,000 for the expense of paving, and also
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of meeting the expense by annual appropriations, which were financial measures obviously incompatible. As to the main question, however, the instruction by the electorate was both explicit and mandatory.
Harry D. Sisson, the mayor of 1903, pressed the undertaking with due dispatch. During the year Clapp Avenue, a portion of upper North Street, and West Street, from the railroad station to the Park, were surfaced with bitulithic pavement, and Park Place and lower North Street were paved with sheet asphalt. The expenditure of about $100,000 was supervised by a special committee, headed by the mayor.
Subsequent additions to Pittsfield's system of paved streets increased its mileage only slightly in twelve years. That sys- tem measured, in January, 1915, about three and a half miles of asphalt, bitulithic, brick, wood block, asphaltic macadam, and cement concrete pavement. The chief obstacle to the extensions of permanent pavement seems not to have been any lack of favorable public sentiment but rather the problem of finance, arising, as did so many of Pittsfield's problems contemporaneous with it, from the abnormally rapid growth of the city. The large annual gains of population forced upon the municipal authorities the equipment of new residential streets in preference to the costly improvements of existing business thoroughfares. It may justly be observed, also, that this unusual burden chanced to be imposed upon the local officials at the time when the ad- vent of the motor car and the motor truck was also perplexing highway builders everywhere in this country with novel difficul- ties.
The Ashley waterworks, acquired by the new city from the old fire district, were not supplied with a suitable storage reservoir and they had been originally designed to provide water for merely that portion of the township which lay within a radius of a mile from the Park. The members of the city's first board of public works, considering the future extension of the system far beyond its former limits, promptly appreciated the necessity of planning increased supply; and to this end they employed an advisory engineer in the summer of 1891. He recommended the appropriation by the city of the water and the watershed of
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Pontoosuc Lake, and also the driving of twenty wells in a meadow ncar Sackett Brook, whence the water was to be pumped into a storage reservoir. The city's officials decided instead to utilize Hathaway Brook, a small Washington Mountain stream, and, under the authority of a legislative act of 1892, water from this brook was turned into the mains in April, 1893. It was the first addition made in seventeen years to the sources of Pitts- field's water supply.
In the meantime, the city's consumption of water per capita began markedly to increase. Meters set occasionally in business blocks and manufactorics showed a daily consumption "not only startling, but almost beyond belief", according to the report of the superintendent of the waterworks in 1895. Successive boards of public works vainly urged the permanent installation of water meters. The pressure often was alarmingly low in outlying districts, so low in 1893 that it afforded no fire protection at Pontoosuc and Taconic. Since 1876, when the Sackett Brook dam and pipe line were added to the Ashley waterworks, the consumption of water had increased nearly three-fold, but the only addition in seventeen years to the sources of supply had been the acquisition of Hathaway Brook.
In 1894, the situation was somewhat relieved by the laying of a large distributing main from the bridge on Elm Street to Pontoosuc village; and in the following years the city employed another consulting engineer, D. M. Greene of Troy, to con- sider the water problem. One of the recommendations of Mr. Greene's exhaustive report was speedily adopted, and the right to use Mill Brook, in the northeastern part of the town of Lenox, was obtained by the city, a small reservoir was built thereon, and its water, in 1896, became available for the mains of Pitts- field.
Soon a change of policy, or of method, was for a time discern- ible in the securing of additional water supply. It was pointed out that new sources need not be sought, that a large amount of excellent water ran to waste at certain seasons from the water- shed of Ashley Lake, and that the conservation of this supply might be more immediately desirable than a connection of the city's waterworks with distant brooks of fickle flowage. Ac-
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cordingly, official energies were devoted to obtaining an increased storage capacity of the system laid out by the old fire district, forty years before. Work on a new and higher dam at Ashley Lake began in February, 1901. The original contractors aban- doned the undertaking during the next September, and its completion was therefore delayed, but water was finally turned into the new basin on December twenty-third, 1902. The dam had added twenty acres to the area of the lake and increased its capacity to about 400,000,000 gallons.
Nevertheless, the members of the board of public works were not satisfied; they were of the opinion that "steps, if preliminary only, should be taken this year for providing additional storage capacity at the Ashley distributing reservoir" on the brook be- low the lake. The mayor of 1906, Allen H. Bagg, repeated the suggestion insistently. "It is of the greatest importance," said his inaugural address, "that attention be given our water system, in order that additional storage be secured and the useless waste of water about our city be checked. To carefully consider this entire problem and determine just the right action to take is the most important matter we have this year to meet". The public officials, in short, were alive to the public needs. The report of the board of public works of 1905 showed that the per capita consumption of water in Pittsfield was 150 gallons daily, and that, during the previous ten years, eighteen miles of mains had been added to Pittsfield's water system.
An act of the legislature authorizing the city to take the water of Roaring Brook in Lenox and Washington became law in 1907, but Pittsfield did not immediately utilize the privilege. Instead, the board of public works pursued the policy of in- creasing the gravity pressure of established supply, and work was begun in 1907 on raising the intake reservoir dams of Ashley, Sackett, Hathaway and Mill Brooks. The enlargement of these intake reservoirs was completed in 1908, so that the aggregate capacity of the four was estimated to be 40,000,000 gallons. Of these, the principal one was the new reservoir on Ashley Brook, where was built a hollow dam of reinforced concrete, 450 feet long with a height of forty feet at the spillway.
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