Western Railroad Stone Arch Bridges and Chester Factory Village Depot

A National Historic Landmark. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 21 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1886.

From the record

One of 183 National Register listings published here for Berkshire County · category: District · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

Address. Vicinity of Herbert Cross Road, Middlefield/Becket Line (Bridges and Roadbed); 10 Prospect Street (Depot), Becket
Category. district
National Register reference number. 100006273 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

6 since 2016

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 6 fires within 5 miles of Western Railroad Stone Arch Bridges and Chester Factory Village Depot between 2016 and 2018, burning about 26 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Recreation and ceremony	1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
29 August 2017	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
29 July 2017	Recreation and ceremony	2.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
17 June 2018	Power generation/transmission/distribution	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
10 April 2017	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
31 March 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	18 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
12 March 2016	Debris and open burning	5.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Every fire recorded in Berkshire County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 26 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 26 workings within 5 miles of Western Railroad Stone Arch Bridges and Chester Factory Village Depot: 10 past producers, 9 occurrences, 7 producers. 7 still produce. What was taken out: Emery, Silica, Iron, Granite. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Chester Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Chrome-Magnetite Mine	Iron, Chromium	Past Producer
Sackett Emery Mine	Iron, Emery	Occurrence	1875
Berkshire Quarry	Granite	Producer
Soapstone Quarry	Talc-Soapstone	Producer	Metamorphic
Soapstone Quarry	Talc-Soapstone	Past Producer
Williams Stone Co	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Sackett Emery Mine	Iron	Past Producer	Magnetite
Sackett Emery Mine	Iron, Emery	Past Producer
Silica Quarry	Silica	Producer

Every working recorded in Berkshire County

Maps showing this location

21 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the middle of the area the National Park Service maps for this listing, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1886 USGS Chesterfield quadrangle1:62500
1888 USGS Chesterfield quadrangle1:62500
1893 USGS Chesterfield quadrangle1:62500
1895 USGS Chesterfield quadrangle1:62500 - 8 printings
1896 USGS Holyoke quadrangle1:125000
1897 USGS Holyoke quadrangle1:125000
1901 USGS Holyoke quadrangle1:125000 - 4 printings
1943 USGS Holyoke quadrangle1:125000
1948 USGS Albany quadrangle1:250000
1948 USGS Chester quadrangle1:31680 - 2 printings
1956 USGS Albany quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1956 USGS Chester quadrangle1:24000 - 2 printings
1957 USGS Albany quadrangle1:250000
1959 USGS Albany quadrangle1:250000
1962 USGS Albany quadrangle1:250000
1972 USGS Chester quadrangle1:24000
1972 USGS Chester quadrangle1:25000
1975 USGS Chester quadrangle1:25000
1985 USGS Holyoke quadrangle1:100000 - 2 printings
1987 USGS Chester quadrangle1:25000 - 2 printings
1997 USGS Chester quadrangle1:25000

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Becket Center Historic District	3.8 miles	1982
North Becket Village Historic District	5.1 miles	1988
Clark-Eames House	5.2 miles	1986
Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival	6.5 miles	2003
Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival	6.6 miles	2001
Lower Historic District	6.9 miles	1986

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 100006273 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Berkshire County	All 183 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.