CHESTER – On Jan. 13, the National Historic Landmarks program announced the designation of 21 new National Historic Landmarks by the secretary of the interior.  Among them were the Western Railroad Stone Arch Bridges and Chester Factory Village Depot.  

For David Pierce, president of the Chester Foundation, which runs the Chester Railway Museum, and the Friends of the Keystone Arches, it was the fulfillment of a decades-long quest to recognize the historical significance of these pieces of history for Chester and the surrounding towns.

Pierce said he started thinking about the designation 20 years ago. He said there are 2,500 National Historic Landmark sites nationwide, compared to 60,000 on the Historic Register, which makes it an elite designation “in the same category as the White House and the Washington Monument,” Pierce said.

Designated were two of a series of 10 Western Railroad Keystone Arches, constructed in the late 1830s. Pierce said the other two surviving intact arches belong to the CSX Corporation, which didn’t want to be involved, and they are still used for train crossings.

The bridges are the highest achievement of George Washington Whistler (1800-1849), one of the country’s leading practitioners of civil engineering, a pioneering designer of railroads, and father of artist James A. McNeill Whistler. The arches are significant as an intact segment of the first railroad in the country, and possibly the world, to go over a mountain and through a wilderness.  The railroad was built by 3,000 Irish immigrants, Pierce said, the first built by large numbers of immigrant labor. He said at that time the Western Railroad, which connected Worcester to Albany, was the longest at 150 miles.

“It was a template for developmental railroads – what railroads became. At this point, the railroad was just solving a local problem. The Erie Canal had been built, and trade was going on with the interior and Canada. Boston was cut out of it, and the trade went to Albany and New York City,” said Pierce, who is making a documentary about the Western Railroad. “The title of our film, "Railroad to the Moon" is from an editorial in the Boston Courier from the era, claiming the Western RR would be ‘as useless as a railroad to the moon,’” he said.

The National Historic Landmark designation includes the Chester Village Factory Depot, a railway station constructed in 1862 in the village of Chester adjacent to the Western Railroad line (now the active CSX line). In the nomination it is described as a pre-Civil War wood-frame passenger station, one of only four surviving Western Railroad stations from that era.

The Chester Foundation moved the station from one side of the tracks to the other in 1990 to save it from being razed, and subsequently restored it.  Pierce said one of the founders and the first president of the Chester Foundation Lucy Conant mortgaged her house to move and preserve the station. He said because it was moved, the nomination of the station was harder to achieve, but it was included due to the integrity of the history that’s represented by the Western Railroad.

The Chester Railway Station now houses a museum of the Western Railroad line. The station is also the site of many town and private functions, and attracts visitors from around the country and around the world. The yard houses a vintage food service car, the “Blue Caboose,” which is used as a kitchen for functions, and the 1919 “Wooden Caboose,” which is available for campers to rent for the night.

“It’s an immersive history exhibit if you think about it.  You can experience what it was like to be a brakeman 100 years ago when you’re in there and the trains are going by all night long,” Pierce said.

The nomination for the National Historic designation was prepared by the Public Archeology Laboratory, Pawtucket, RI, and funded through a grant from the Wild & Scenic Committee.  

“It has to be prepared by experts in the field and preferably experts who have prepared these nominations before.  That runs into thousands, in this case $35,000.00, which Wild & Scenic funded with one of their community grants.  This was one of the biggest things to happen in the watershed in a long while,” Pierce said, adding, “It’s cool – they check all your facts for you.”

Pierce said the Wild & Scenic Committee agreed to the funding because the Keystone Arches are the most significant historic resource in the Westfield River watershed. Over 78 miles of the Westfield River’s headwater tributaries and three major branches are designated as a National Wild & Scenic River.

The town of Chester is also lobbying hard to make the Railway Station a stop on the proposed East-West Railway passenger line.  Pierce said all three surviving proposals now include Chester as an intermediate stop, along with Springfield and Pittsfield.

U.S. Congressman Richard Neal recently paused before entering a budget briefing in the Capitol to congratulate the advocates on the National Historic Landmark designation, which he called “not an easy thing to do.”

“It’s pretty exciting.  Preserving these landmarks is essential, and a reminder of what rail meant to this country,” Neal said, adding, “Preserving them is a part of history, and reminds us of the past and the future.  It’s also a tribute to the architectural prowess and genius of America’s early builders.”

Neal said he was going to call and congratulate Pierce, who he said has lobbied him hard on making Chester a stop on the East-West Rail line.

"As a member of both the Chester Board of Selectmen, and even longer-time member of the Chester Foundation [the organization that oversees the station], I've always understood and appreciated the value of the Chester Railway Station and Keystone Arches to the town and surrounding area. In addition to both spots drawing local participation, people from far beyond Chester – including some from other countries – visit on a regular basis. With the designation of the Station and Arches as a combined National Historic Landmark, this will bring more people, who will not only visit those sites, but patronize other business in town as well,” said Barbara Huntoon, chair of the Board of Selectmen.

“I want to commend Dave Pierce, president of both the Chester Foundation and the Friends of the Keystone Arches, for his work on this project. And of course, neither the Station nor the Arches would be what they are today without the work and dedication of countless committed volunteers through the years,” Huntoon added.