Woo Woo! It's Woburn Time

From Dave Brigham:

Let's get this out of the way: Woburn is pronounded "Woo-burn," not "Whoa-burn."

Located about nine miles north of Boston, Woburn was settled by white folks in 1640, and originally included the present-day towns of Burlington and Winchester, and parts of Stoneham and Wilmington. At least some of the land was already populated by the Abenaki tribe, according to the Woburn Historical Society.

Near the end of last summer, I explored the small city's downtown, for no other reason than I wanted to write the headline you see above. Seriously, though, I knew next to nothing about Woburn, so off I went.

The first building of interest I spied was the imposing First Congregational church, which is badly in need of a paint job. I was fighting the sun, so my photos are a bit oddly angled and artsy.

Built in 1860, the Italianate-Romanesque building has, as is the case with just about any old building, some interesting quirks in its history. According to Wikipedia, the 196-foot steeple is the tallest wooden steeple in North America. And, according to MACRIS, "The...Church in order to accommodate the City built a side door leading to the City Common so that the City Council could meet in what is now called the Anne Murray Room (named after this lady, perhaps). An engine company of the Fire Department was housed temporarily in the sub-basement of the Church" at one time.

Additionally, the organ in the church (which may not still be there) dated to 1860 and was built by E.G. & G. Hook. That company, originally based in Boston, eventually built a factory in Weston, Mass., which I wrote about in my profile of that town's Kendal Green neighborhood (see June 23, 2017, "A Walk Through Weston's History").

Presenting a nice architectural contrast to the mega-spire is Woburn Bowladrome.

Located on Montvale Avenue within sight of the church, the bowling complex was established in 1940. Since its beginning in what was an old garage with eight candlepin lanes (with pin boys setting up the racks), the alley has grown to feature 40 candlepin lanes with automatic scoring, per its web site. I'm always happy to see places like this survive, because I've certainly come across plenty that have gone under.

(Rear of Woburn Bowladrome.)

From the bowling joint I curled back around to Winn Street and then to Main Street, where I saw two buildings that I can only describe as adorable.

On the left, at #400, is Mahoney's Barber Shop, which is listed on Google as being temporarily closed. The Woburn assessor's database lists this property's built date as 1979, but that's obviously incorrect. Nobody was erecting buildings with those types of windows and roofline details in the Me Decade. I'm guessing it dates to the late 19th century.

Next door is #406, which the database also indicates rose in 1979. Sigh...I'll never understand how assessor databases work. Where does that bad information come from? This is why I rely on MACRIS so much. That database tells me that #406 -- known alternately as the Col. John Wade Block and the College Block -- was built in 1810 (!).

Ah, so what's 169 years? Anyway, in this instance, MACRIS is only somewhat more useful to my purposes. Whoever wrote the report about this Federal-style building indicates it was built before 1848, and then wrote (c. 1810?), citing a 1904 article in the Woburn News. At least MACRIS got the correct century.

Directly north of #406 is another great old building.

Things only get more frustrating here. The database doesn't list this place at all, and a Zillow listing refers to what is evidently the favorite year of the Woburn assessor: 1979.

I give up.

Next in line is Andrea's Pizza, which has been slinging pies since 1977.

Along Campbell Street, I made a photo of Doughty & Sons, a family-owned heating/cooling/plumbing operation founded in 1980.

Did I make this photo because it made me think of Mike Doughty, one-time lead singer of Soul Coughing? Yes, I did. While I have only a mild interest in that band, I feel a connection to Mr. Doughty, because an acquaintance who is a massive fans of Doughty told me years ago that he couldn't get over how much I look like the singer. While my beard is nowhere near as impressive as Doughty's (check his web site; he's the one on the right on the main page), we share a similar glasses style and we're both bald. Anyway, below is Soul Coughing's big hit from many years ago.

Make sure you listen to music at Doughty's web site. Sounds pretty good to me.

I was excited to see the old Colonial Beacon Filling Station. I'd done a quick search on Flickr for old photos of Woburn, and this was the one thing I was hoping I'd run across.

My interest was piqued because of the unique golden dome on this place, but once I learned the back story via MACRIS, I became truly enamored with it. Built in the 1920s (MACRIS says 1925), the station, with its "[p]rominent columns, balustrade dome and lantern," was patterned after Boston's Massachusetts State House, according to MACRIS. The state house was designed by well-known architect Charles Bulfinch, who over the course of a career spanning the late 18th century into the early 19th designed dozens of buildings in Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere.

The Colonial Beacon station was one of dozens with the same design built in Massachusetts in the 1920s, according to this June 2019 Patch article. Of those many buildings, I believe perhaps only three remain, in Malden and Boston. There was one in Stoneham that was converted to an ice cream parlor, but it was torn down and replaced by condos.

According to MACRIS, Clifford Leonard, one of the owners of Beacon Oil Company, convinced his partners to build Colonial filling stations. "His reasoning was to market these stations as facsimiles of the Bulfinch State House in Boston. The State House served as the centerpiece of the 'Hub' of Boston, and Leonard wanted to have his gasoline station equated with this popular image."

The 2019 Patch article indicated that the Woburn Historical Commission voted to impose a one-year delay on demolition permits filed by the owner, a subsidiary of the Clancy Group. Four years later, the building still stands. I have been unable to determine if there is a plan to knock the building down, or to restore it.

I doubled back along Main Street, walking on the west side so as to shoot buildings on the east. How could I resist the former Woburn Masonic Hall?

Also known as the Bank Block, the Italianate beauty "is downtown Woburn’s oldest and best-preserved 19th century brick commercial block," according to MACRIS...."[T]he brick block is accented by granite trimmings including corner quoins, keystones above and pilaster caps flanking the arched windows, a string course above the second story openings and continuous window sills on the second and third stories."

At its construction in 1862, it was home to the Bank of Woburn. In 1871, a fourth story with a Mansard roof was added, to house two Masonic chapters in town, according to MACRIS. The bank continued to operate there. In 1921, the building was sold to the F.W. Woolworth Company, which put a large addition on the back. The Mansard roof was removed in 1947.

Across Main Street from the old Woolworth's, and next to Mahoney's Barber Shop, is the home of National Music, which has a pretty nice sign out front.

In business for more than four decades, the store specializes in concert and marching band instruments, as well as portable sound systems, per its web site.

I headed north on Park Street for a short time, saw a ghost sign, then headed back to the main square.

Currently home to Ani's Auto Body, this place was, at some point, known as Park Street Garage. The assessor's database says this building dates to 1959. Maybe that's right, but I'm dubious.

Over on Winn Street, parallel to Park Street, I found Capelo's Auto Service, which also sells used cars.

I like the plastic sign. I'm not sure how long the business has been here, or how old the building is.

Back in the main square, at the corner of Winn and Pleasant streets, is a beautiful old Classical Revival building.

Currently home to the Satsang Center Hindu Temple, this stately lady lost her steeple in a 1925 tornado, and it was never replaced. (Minor complaint about MACRIS. The organization's write-up mentions the tornado, but also twice says it was a hurricane - sheesh....) Built in 1840 as a Congregational Church, the building was taken over by the local Unitarian folks in 1863. "The last meeting of the Unitarian congregation was held in June 1990," according to MACRIS. "The church was sold to the City of Woburn in 1992 and to the Satsang Corporation, the present owner, the following year."

A few doors down, at the corner of Federal and Pleasant streets, is the impressive Woburn Five Cents Savings Bank building.

Now home to an urgent care facility, this granite and sandstone solid citizen rose in 1888, and was significantly altered in 1931. The bank completed a four-story building on this site in 1888, which it partially occupied. Other tenants over the years included a post office, a druggist, a YMCA, the St. Charles Catholic Total Abstinence Society, Post 161 of the Grand Army of the Republic and other social and patriotic organizations, according to MACRIS. There was a concert hall on the third floor at one point; that space was taken over by the Eastern Middlesex District Court beginning in 1915.

In 1930, the bank trustees met to discuss whether to construct a new building, or to rebuild the existing one. They decided on the latter option. "The Thomas M. James Company was retained as architects and the top two stories of the Victorian structure were removed," per MACRIS.

Across Pleasant Street from the Hindu temple and the old bank, on one corner of Woburn Common, is something the likes of which I've never seen before. Frankly, I'd never even heard of the item protected in a glass case and described in a plaque in front. It made for a nice final stop on my relatively short tour of Woburn.

That there is a ventilator cowl from the USS Maine, which was commissioned by the U.S. Navy in 1895, and sank three years later in Cuba's Havana Harbor. The sinking, and the subsequent sensationalized reports by journalists (especially in newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer), led indirectly to the Spanish-American War over Cuba. According to Wikipedia, the Maine had been sent from Key West, Florida to Havana, Cuba "to protect American interests during the Cuban War of Independence." Three weeks after her arrival, there was an explosion on board, which killed 268 sailors, rougnly three-quarters of the crew.

"In 1898, a U.S. Navy board of inquiry ruled that the ship had been sunk by an external explosion from a mine," per Wikipedia, with the Hearst and Pulitzer papers claiming the Spanish had done it. "However, some U.S. Navy officers disagreed with the board, suggesting that the ship's magazines had been ignited by a spontaneous fire in a coal bunker. The coal used in Maine was bituminous, which is known for releasing firedamp, a mixture of gases composed primarily of flammable methane that is prone to spontaneous explosions. An investigation by Admiral Hyman Rickover in 1974 agreed with the coal fire hypothesis."

Wreckage recovered from the bottom of the harbor was distributed to towns and cities across the United States. "America's small towns, flush with patriotic fervor, demanded relics of the waterlogged battlewagon to enshrine," according to Roadside America. "Some did better than others. Perhaps the greatest prize -- the captain's bathtub -- was snagged by Findlay, OH, but the other macabre booty was democratically scattered nationwide. Three ventilator cowls -- those horns that stick out of ship decks that people are always falling into or peeping out of in movies -- were dredged up. One was given to Woburn."

Now you -- and I -- know what the heck a ventilator cowl is.