Former Chemical Compound Has Deep History

From Dave Brigham:

This is the third and final post in my short series about former industrial properties in Waltham, Mass. As with the other two (see here and here), the former Atlas Chemical Company factory is a place I'd been past countless times without thinking about shooting photos and doing some research.

Located on one-way Calvary Street, across from a large Catholic cemetery, with its backside facing the Charles River and a multi-use path that I've walked and jogged along on dozens of occasions, this property isn't as large as the former Boston Manufacturing Company and Waltham Watch Factory sites I wrote about previously. But the site has an industrial history stretching back roughly 140 years.

As with those companies, Atlas Chemical came into being in the 19th century, as the Industrial Revolution rolled across America. From MACRIS: "The Atlas Chemical Co. was founded by H.B. & W.O. Chamberlain in the early 1880's. The firm manufactured sulphuret of antimony, a chemical used in the making of rubber. The founding and rapid growth of the Hood Rubber Co. in Watertown led to significant growth in the business of the Atlas Chemical Co. (I will talk about the former rubber plant in a future post about East Watertown). After this time, about 1930, the plant was vacated and remained so for most of the decade. Before World War II the R.B. Lados Co. (fertilizer manufacturers) and the Davenport Abrasives Corp. took over the factory."

In more recent years, the buildings were occupied by various industrial operations, including manufacturers of chemicals, woolens, machine tools, and screw machine products, per MACRIS. Today, the buildings house a handful of transportation companies (JSC Transportation, Veterans Taxi and Harrison Global) and other businesses.

The site is also home to Apex Centerless Grinding, as seen in the photo above.

This small complex is located across the Charles River from the River City Plaza, home of Shaw's grocery store, Ocean State Job Lot and several smaller businesses. That site has quite the industrial past, as well.

River City Plaza is the site of former Waltham Cotton and Wool Company, according to a Waltham Land Trust article I found online. "Incorporated in 1812, the factory employed over 200 workers. In 1818, a larger mill was built next to the Cotton and Wool Company, which became the Waltham Bleachery and Dye Works."

This area of Waltham is still referred to as the Bleachery. This is a business that you just know was horrible for the environment, especially the adjacent river. "The Waltham Bleachery and Dye Works remained in business until 1951 when the buildings were taken over by Raytheon," per a Waltham Museum article. Founded in nearby Cambridge in 1922, Raytheon built death rays and weather-changing supercolliders at its Waltham property. Seriously, though, the defense contractor built everything from missile-guidance systems and magnetron tubes to microwaves. I knew that the company's former campus sprawled across sites on the north side of Pleasant Street in Watertown (which becomes River Street in Waltham), but I didn't know that River City Plaza was part of its operations as well.

For more on the former Raytheon site, check out April 17, 2021, "The Honey Hole."

Prior to the doomsday, cotton and bleachery businesses, there was a paper mill on this site, constructed in 1794 by Christopher Gore, who also built a dam on the site, according to the web site for Gore Place.