Demolition crews tore down the historic Boston & Maine Signal Tower near the Water Street Bridge in Concord this week, a property that was on the state’s Seven to Save list.
The small brick building once helped to control railroad traffic throughout the region and was on the verge of being demolished for years.
Its owner, the CSX corporation, said the decision was made for safety reasons.
“The structure has been vacant for approximately 15 years and had become a site for unauthorized entry and encampment,” company spokeswoman Sheriee Bowman said. “A recent fire underscored the risks it posed to both the public and our employees. While we respect the interest of historic preservationists, our highest priority is ensuring safety and maintaining secure operations.”
Last year, the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance flagged the tower as one of the properties around the state that was in jeopardy of being lost.
“Because physical examples of railroad history and the intricacies of railroad operations are becoming increasingly rare, this tower’s pending demolition prompted a stronger grassroots opposition than would be expected for such a small building,” the Alliance wrote. “Advocates are hoping its small size makes the rescue and reuse a manageable and doable project.”
The Alliance said the building could be repurposed as an “office, exhibit and meeting space that will complement redevelopment underway in Concord’s South End.”
Despite preservation efforts, the structure was reduced to a pile of debris and torn down to its foundation by Thursday morning.
The signal tower was located near the Water Street Bridge and one of the city’s homeless encampments. Emergency crews were called to extinguish a fire inside the tower last month.
The 800-square-foot brick structure was built before World War I by the Boston & Maine Railroad as part of the massive Concord rail yard, which was one of New England’s major rail hubs for a century. It operated as the yard’s signal tower until about 1980 and then served for a time as headquarters of New England Southern, a small local railroad firm. That ended after Pan Am Railways took over much of B&M’s freight operation.
Pan Am was bought in 2022 by rail giant CSX, which planned to tear down the signal tower until Concord’s Demolition Review Committee agreed that the building was historically significant and should be saved. But its future remained uncertain, which prodded the decision to add it to the annual Seven to Save list.
“We have a rich railroad history in Concord and there were a lot of people in the community who felt very strongly about losing another piece of that history,” said Jim Spain, the chairman of the city’s demolition review committee.
CSX boarded up and secured the building, but that was not enough to keep trespassers out.
The committee was able to buy some time to explore preservation efforts, but that period of protection had expired.
“It’s sad. It’s too bad,” Spain said. “Ultimately, it’s their choice and they followed the letter of the law.”
The building is close to the grounds of the Gasholder building, which is also the subject of local efforts to preserve a historically important building that has no current use.
