Washington Street (Boston)

Washington Street is a street originating in downtown Boston, Massachusetts that extends southwestward to the Massachusetts–Rhode Island state line. The majority of it was built as the Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike in the early 19th century. It is the longest street in Boston, and it remains one of the longest streets in the state of Massachusetts.

Washington Street, as the first street that connected peninsular Boston to the mainland, serves as a divide where a number of cross streets change name.

The part of Washington Street between downtown Boston and Dudley Square in Roxbury was the first road connecting the small town of Boston to the mainland, carrying the Boston Post Road to New York City. It was originally known by several names:

On July 4, 1788, the road south of the fortification, to the line with Roxbury, was given the name Washington Street. The name was extended north to Adams Square on July 6, 1824, and north on a new road to Haymarket Square on November 6, 1872.

The part north of Roxbury Street in Dudley Square, Roxbury was laid out as a public way on January 19, 1662, and given its name May 9, 1825. Additionally, the Washington Street name went west on Roxbury Street, Tremont Street, and Huntington Avenue (the path of the Boston Post Road) to the border with Brookline (which still has a Washington Street as an extension of this one).

The Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike was established in 1803, and built as a turnpike as a straighter alternate to two roads between Boston and Providence—the Lower Boston Post Road (via Norwood and Foxborough) and the road via Walpole and Wrentham. It ran from Dudley Square to the Rhode Island line and beyond to downtown Pawtucket. Coincidentally the only part not built as a new road was the part through North Attleborough that US 1 now bypasses.

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