MassachusettsA contributing property in the Western Railroad Stone Arch Bridges and Chester Factory Village Depot, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010. Spanning two parcels in the Westfield River valley, this district contains a segment of the Western Railroad roadbed and two stone arch bridges completed by 1841, together with the 1862 Chester Factory Village Depot. The resources are nationally significant in transportation as surviving components of the Western Railroad, which linked Worcester, Massachusetts, with Albany, New York, and was the longest railroad built and operated by a single American corporation as well as one of the first inter-regional railroads, introducing management practices that became standard in American business. The roadbed and bridges are also significant as the best works of pioneering civil engineer George Washington Whistler and as an intact example of the first railroad to prove that trains could cross a mountain range using traction alone.
Western Railroad: Chester Factory Village Depot
The places that make Massachusetts, Massachusetts.
Western Railroad: Chester Factory Village Depot is a landmark in Chester, Hampden County. It is one of 3,654 landmarks documented in Hampden County, among 3,815 historic sites cataloged across the county on MassRoam.
The site sits at 42.2804, -72.9785 near Chester. The nearest cataloged historic site is Boston and Albany Railroad House (landmark), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Ely Store, Willicutt Building, and Outbuilding at 10 Maple St.
This record is drawn from public historical records. Use the map below for its exact position and turn-by-turn directions.
The Chester Factory Village Depot is a timber-frame railroad station built around 1862 alongside the Western Railroad line in Chester, whose full route to Albany had opened in 1841. It is regarded as one of only about four surviving Western Railroad timber-frame stations and the most intact of them. The depot, together with the nearby Western Railroad stone arch bridges, has been recognized as a National Historic Landmark for its role in American railroad history and now serves as a railway station museum.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Get MassRoam — 82,000+ historic sites in your pocket
See this site and every marker, cemetery, courthouse, museum, battlefield and landmark across Massachusetts on one live map — find what's near you, get directions, and collect sites as you roam.
