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Explore the Rich History of Allston
Published: 09/24/2010
The neighborhood of Allston was originally part of the town of Brighton. The town no longer exists, but has a lot of history behind it. Back in 1868, the area got its first railroad station and post office. The name itself comes from the acclaimed painter, Washington Allston. At the time, Allston was living in Cambridge in a section called Cambridgeport across the Charles River. Allston never really had a political presence in the area, but worked there creating his works of art for many years. His most famous painting is arguably “Fields West of Boston”, which refers to the neighborhood with his name.
In 1874 the City of Boston annexed the Town of Brighton; the Allston community ended up growing around the railroad and livestock industries. This was prior to the introduction of Harvard University, the most famous landmark in the neighborhood. There were large stockyards of livestock in the northern part of Brighton; these were in operation up until the mid 1900’s. A lot of the railroad yard still remains and is in use. The CSX Transportation Beacon Park yard is the area in which Harvard plans to redevelop with its auxiliary campus, including the new medical school.
A big part of the business side of Allston became a long strip of automobile dealers. This area of numerous car dealers became known as Boston’s original “Automile”. The Packard Sales Stable and Riding school was a fixture here for many years in the popular automaker’s heyday. The land where this was located even took on the self-proclaimed nickname, “Packard’s Corner”. However, today there are only a couple of dealerships left – a Toyota and Vespa dealer. So, basically the car businesses are mostly all gone, but the large buildings still remain.
This Allston area of Boston also lays claim to some other notable venues in the world of sports. Braves Field (which is now called Nickerson Field) on the eastern side of the neighborhood, was once home to the Major League Baseball team, the Boston Braves. The Braves later moved to Atlanta and went on to become one of the more popular teams in the league. Nickerson Field, from 1960 – 1962 was host to the Boston Patriots (now called the New England Patriots) of the National Football league. The Patriots also played at Harvard Stadium (also in Allston) during the 1970 season.
