Interior House Painter Belmont MA

Belmont, Massachusetts
Town
Looking north on Leonard Street in the town center
Seal
Motto:  “The Town Of Homes”
Location in Middlesex County in Massachusetts
Coordinates: 42°23′45″N 71°10′45″W / 42.39583°N 71.17917°W / 42.39583; -71.17917Coordinates: 42°23′45″N 71°10′45″W / 42.39583°N 71.17917°W / 42.39583; -71.17917
Country	United States
State	Massachusetts
County	Middlesex
Settled	1636
Incorporated	1859
Government
• Type	Representative town meeting
• Town Administrator	Patrice Garvin
Area
• Total	4.7 sq mi (12.2 km2)
• Land	4.7 sq mi (12.1 km)
• Water	0.1 sq mi (0.1 km2)
Elevation	44 ft (13 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	27,295
• Density	5,800/sq mi (2,200/km)
Time zone	UTC-5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 (Eastern)
ZIP code	02478
Area code	617 / 857
FIPS code	25-05070
GNIS feature ID	0618216
Website	Town of Belmont, MA

Belmont is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. It is a western suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, United States; and is part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. At the time of the 2020 U.S. Census, the town’s population stood at 27,295, up 10.4% from 2010.

History

Belmont was established on March 10, 1849, by former citizens of, and land from the bordering towns of Watertown, to the south; Waltham, to the west; and Arlington, then known as West Cambridge, to the north. They also wanted a town where no one could buy or sell alcohol (alcohol is now legal to purchase in Belmont). The town was named after Bellmont, the 200 acre (0.8 km) estate of the largest donor to its creation, John Perkins Cushing. Cushing Square is named after him and what was left of his estate after it nearly burned to the ground became a Belmont Public Library branch. The easternmost section of the town, including the western portion of Fresh Pond, was annexed by Cambridge in 1880 in a dispute over a slaughterhouse licensed in 1878 on Fresh Pond, so that Cambridge could protect Fresh Pond, a part of its municipal water system.^{[citation needed]}

Preceding its incorporation, Belmont was an agrarian based town, with several large farms servicing Boston for produce and livestock. It remained largely the same until the turn of the twentieth century, when trolley service and better roads were introduced, making the town more attractive as a residential area, most notably for the building of large estates. Belmont’s population grew by over 70 percent during the 1920s.

The economics of the town shifted from purely agrarian to a commercial greenhouse base; much of the flower and vegetable needs of Boston were met from the Belmont ‘hothouses’ which persisted until about 1983 when Edgar’s, the last large greenhouse firm in the area, closed.

Other commercial enterprises in Belmont included mining clay and waste management. The reclamation of a large dump and quarry off Concord Avenue into sites for the Belmont High School and the Clay Pit Pond stands as a lasting example of environmental planning. With the introduction of automobiles and highways, Belmont continued its transition to a commuter-based suburb throughout the twentieth century.

Belmont was the home of the headquarters of the John Birch Society from the organization’s founding in 1958 until its relocation to Appleton, Wisconsin in 1989. The building at 395 Concord Avenue later became the headquarters of the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), which is expanding and renovating its facility as of 2019.

Railroad history

Belmont was once served by two railroads, the Fitchburg Railroad and the Central Massachusetts Railroad, both of which were later to become part of the Boston & Maine Railroad system. Originally the two railroads each had their own separate trackage through town, but in 1952 the Central Mass tracks were removed between Hill’s Crossing and Clematis Brook (Waltham), and rail traffic was rerouted over the Fitchburg line.^{[citation needed]}

Today the MBTA owns the trackage that runs through Belmont, which is known as the Fitchburg Line. Passenger service on this line currently terminates at Fitchburg, but it once was the area’s main route into New York state. As of 2011, the MBTA was planning to extend future service to West Fitchburg.

The station stops at Belmont Center and Waverley were once grade crossings, so that pedestrian and vehicular traffic had to cross directly over rails that were in public roads. In 1907, the grade at Belmont Center was eliminated by constructing a stone arch bridge and elevated embankment to carry the tracks past a new station building. At Waverley, the grade was lowered so that the tracks ran under Trapelo Road, though the platform did not have an enclosed structure at that location.^{[citation needed]}