in
Cambridge (foreground), and the
Back Bay skyline of
Boston at night
Pre-colonial Long before European settlers named and shaped the Charles, Native Americans living in New England made the river a central part of their lives. At the time of European colonization in the early 1600s, settlements of
Massachusett people were present along the river at
Nonantum in current-day
Newton and
Pigsgusset in current-day
Watertown. Prior to the arrival of
Puritan colonists in the 1620s,
Captain John Smith of
Jamestown explored and mapped the coast of New England, originally naming the Charles River the Massachusetts River, which he derived from the
Massachusett people living in the region, not from their actual name for the river,
Quinobequin. When Smith presented his map to Prince Charles, future
King Charles I, he suggested that the Prince should feel free to change any of the "barbarous names" for "English" ones. The Prince made many such changes, but only four survive today, one of which is the Charles River which Charles named for himself. The native name for the Charles River was
Quinobequin, possibly meaning "meandering" in
Massachusett from
quinnuppe or "it turns." Other sources state this name was transferred from the Kennebec River in Maine to Cambridge by Prince Charles at the time he renamed this river in his name. Still another explanation is that
Quinobequin was a descriptive term for any long body of water for Eastern Algonquin peoples, which European explorers and settlers interpreted as a local proper name. Examples include the
Kennebec River ("long water place") and
Kennebunk in
Maine, the
Quinebaug River ("long pond"),
Quinapoxet River ("at the little long pond"), and
Quinnipiac River ("long pond") in present-day
Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and
New Hampshire. and by the 19th century the Charles River was one of the most industrialized areas in the United States. Its
hydropower soon fueled many mills and factories. By the century's end, 20 dams had been built across the river, mostly to generate power for industry. An 1875 government report listed 43 mills along the tidal estuary from
Watertown Dam to Boston Harbor. From 1816 to 1968, the
U.S. Army operated a gun and ammunition storage and later production facility known as the
Watertown Arsenal. While it was key to many of the nation's war efforts over its several decades in operation, not the least of which being the
American Civil War and
World War I, its location in
Watertown so near the Charles did great environmental harm. The arsenal was declared a
Super Fund site, and after its closure by the government it had to be cleaned at significant expense before it could be safely used again for other purposes. Likewise, the many factories and mills along the banks of the Charles supported a buoyant economy in their time but left a legacy of massive pollution. For several years, the
Charles River Speedway operated along part of the river.
Creation of the modern Boston-Cambridge basin Today's Charles River basin between
Boston and Cambridge is almost entirely a work of human design.
Owen A. Galvin was appointed head of the Charles River Improvement Commission by Governor
William E. Russell in 1891. Their work led to the design initiatives of noted
landscape architects
Charles Eliot and
Arthur Shurcliff, both of whom had apprenticed with
Frederick Law Olmsted and
Guy Lowell. This designed landscape includes over 20 parks and natural areas along of shoreline, from the New Dam at the Charlestown Bridge to the dam near Watertown Square. Eliot first envisioned today's river design in the 1890s, an important model being the layout of the
Alster basin in
Hamburg, but major construction began only after Eliot's death with the damming of the river's mouth at today's
Boston Museum of Science, an effort led by
James Jackson Storrow. The new dam, completed in 1910, stabilized the water level from Boston to Watertown, eliminating the existing mud flats, and a narrow embankment was built between Leverett Circle and Charlesgate. After Storrow's death, his widow Mrs. James Jackson Storrow donated $1 million toward the creation of a more generously landscaped park along the Esplanade; it was dedicated in 1936 as the Storrow Memorial Embankment. This also enabled the construction of many public docks in the Charles River Basin. In the 1950s a highway,
Storrow Drive, was built along the edge of the Esplanade to connect Charles Circle with Soldiers Field Road, and the Esplanade was enlarged on the water side of the new highway. The
Inner Belt highway was proposed to cross the Charles River at the
Boston University Bridge, but its construction was canceled in the 1970s.
History of pollution and remediation efforts on the
Charlestown side of the Charles River with
Bunker Hill Monument in the distance As
sewage,
industrial wastewater and
urban runoff flowed freely into the river from the surrounding city, the Charles River became well known for its high level of
pollutants, gaining such notoriety that by 1955,
Bernard DeVoto wrote in ''
Harper's Magazine'' that the Charles was "foul and noisome, polluted by offal and industrious wastes, scummy with oil, unlikely to be mistaken for water."
The Standells sang about the sorry state of the Charles in their 1965 song "
Dirty Water". Once popular with swimmers, awareness of the river's high pollution levels forced the state to shut down several popular swimming areas, including Cambridge's Magazine Beach and Gerry Landing public beaches. Efforts to clean up the river and restore it to a state where swimming and fishing would be acceptable began as early as the 1960s, and the program to clean up the Charles for good took shape in 1965 with the creation of the Charles River Watershed Association. In 1978, a new
Charles River Dam was constructed downstream from the Science Museum site to keep
salt water out of the basin. In 1995, the
United States Environmental Protection Agency declared a goal of making the river swimmable by 2005. On November 12, 2004, Christopher Swain became the first person to swim the Charles River's entire length, in an effort to raise public awareness of the river's environmental health. In July 2007, the river hosted the Charles River Masters Swim Race, the first sanctioned race in the Charles in over five decades. A combination of public and private initiatives helped drastically lower levels of pollutants by focusing on eliminating
combined sewer overflows and stormwater
runoff. Since Weld's stunt, the river's condition has improved dramatically, although it was not deemed entirely swimmable by 2005. The
Conservation Law Foundation opposes the permit given to
Mirant for the
Veolia Energy North America
Kendall Cogeneration Station, an electricity plant near
Kendall Square, charging that the water it releases causes blooms of hazardous
microorganisms because of its warm temperature. Overall boatability and swimability of 82% and 54% in 2011 compared with 39% and 19% in 1995. In June 2018, the
Environmental Protection Agency graded the river's 2017 bacterial water quality "A−". A study published in the
Journal of the American Water Resources Association in April 2008 and completed by researchers at Northeastern University, found high concentrations of
E. coli bacteria in the Charles River after a long period of no rain. Using a
mathematical model, the researchers then determined that two major tributaries, the
Stony Brook and
Muddy River, are the predominant sources of
E. coli in the lower Charles River. Starting in 2007, the Charles River Swimming Club has organized an annual race for its members, but obtains a special permit and must monitor water quality and rainfall in the days leading up to the race. The "first public swim" in the Charles since the 1950s was conducted on July 13, 2013, by the Charles River Conservancy, Charles River Watershed Association (CRWA), Esplanade Association, and DCR. Both the annual race and the Conservancy event have been held in deep water with swimmers jumping in off a dock, to avoid the toxic sediments on the bottom of the river that still make beach swimming dangerous. Swimming without a permit is punishable by a fine up to $250. ==Wildlife==