Dorchester Illustration no. 2372 Calf Pasture Pumping Station
The Calf Pasture Pumping Station on Columbia Point will have a hearing at the Boston Landmarks Commission on Tuesday, October 9th, at 6 pm. It is on the agenda after the Citgo Sign in Kenmore Square. The hearing will be a discussion and vote to accept for further study a petition to designate the Pumping Station as a Boston Landmark.
The Calf Pasture Pumping Station and two associated outbuildings are located on Columbia Point in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston.
The Columbia Point Pumping Station is the visible symbol for one of Boston’s great technological innovations in the field of public utilities — the system of interconnecting sewers that was studied by many other cities in the US and beyond. The Boston Main Drainage system evolved into the Metropolitan Sewer District encompassing The Boston Main Draining System, North Metropolitan Sewer District, the Charles River Valley Sewer System and the South Metropolitan Sewer District. From the date of its construction in 1883 for over a century (until the 1980s), the Columbia Point Pumping Station remained the most visible symbol of an underground system of international renown.
Designed by and partially built by Boston City Architect, Albert George Clough in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, it was part of the first comprehensive sewerage project in Boston, initiated in 1875 and completed in 1884. The three buildings under consideration are the pumping station and two related out buildings: a gate house and the west shaft entrance.
In 1868 the report of the Commissioners who were appointed to consider the annexation of Dorchester to the City of Boston stated that one of the objectives of annexation was to construct a tunnel and sewer from Stony Brook to discharge into Dorchester Bay. Dorchester was annexed Jan. 1, 1870.
In 1875, the City of Boston created a commission of civil engineers, headed by Elis S. Chesbough, to report on the state of the sewage system in the city. The Commission’s report showed the immediate need for a new sanitation system and proposed a plan for the construction of the Main Drainage System, with consolidated drains leading south of the city to the Calf Pasture at Dorchester. The new system was completed in 1884 and included the Calf Pasture Pumping Station Complex, and the Moon Island treatment facility.
Designed on the principle of gravity, the system allowed waste to travel from downtown Boston neighborhoods on higher ground, to Dorchester’s Calf Pasture on a lower elevation. The Calf Pasture station had massive pumps designed by Erasmus D. Leavitt that lifted the sewage thirty-five feet to enable its journey away from the heavily populated city, past the oscillating tides, and towards Moon Island. Leavitt’s “body of work includes some of the largest engines of his day, revered for their less-is-more design and game-changing operational efficiency.” An example of his work is the 1894 Leavitt-Riedler Pumping Engine at the Chestnut Hill Pumping Station on display in the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum. His projects included numerous large water or sewage pumping engines for US cities.
The Leavitt Pumps at Calf Pasture were the world’s largest at the time. Their fly wheels each weighed 72.5 tons and measured 50 feet in diameter. The pumps ran continuously throughout the day. Each engine could pump up to 25 million gallons of sewage per day. By the mid-1880s, the two engines pumped an average of just under 37 million gallons each day.
The Boston Main Drainage System was the first extensive and successful sewerage project in the city’s history, and played a vital role in improving the public health in late 19th century Boston. The intercepting sewerage system of Boston was the first great undertaking of its kind in the country, and gave its designers international distinction as sewerage specialists. The station is important as an example of innovative 19th century engineering and as the keystone of a sewage disposal system that served as a model for the rest of the country.