Dorchester Illustration no. 2373 Mile Road Dump, Columbia Point
Mile Road Dump was located on Columbia Point. Mt. Vernon Street is a mile-long road that runs straight from Kosciuzko Circle to the Calf Pasture Pumping Station, which can be seen in the photograph behind Mile Road Dump. We are not sure when the dump opened, but it was in use by the first decade of the 20th century. It closed in 1962.
The photograph was taken in 1937 by Harold Merrill. It has a pencilled note on the back: The squatters city at Mile Road Dump, Dorchester. Permanent residence is maintained here by men who work the dump. They pay no rent nor taxes and have their own civil code and mayor.
From the beginning the dump was a playground for nearby kids. The dump is only one of many uses of Columbia Point over the centuries. When the Puritans arrived in the 17th century, they used Dorchester Neck (South Boston) as a cow pasture and Columbia Point as a calf pasture. In the 19th century gasometers for the storage of coal gas stood on the point. In the 1880s the Calf Pasture Pumping Station was constructed on the Point to facilitate the journey of Boston’s sewage to the bay. During World War II, there was a prisoner of war camp on the point for captured Italian soldiers. Other uses came along: St. Christopher’s Church, the Columbia Point Housing Project, Boston College High School, the Paul A. Dever School and the Geiger-Gibson Health Center. Then came The Massachusetts Archives, UMass Boston, the John F. Kennedy Library, and the Edmund M. Kennedy Institute among others.
Much of Columbia Point now enjoys a park-like setting. From its original 14-acre area, Columbia Point has grown to 350 acres, with the making of new land. The irregular perimeter of inlets and marshy areas became a hard boundary at the edge of the water. The area is attractive for its walking paths and landscaping.