The parkway takes its name from the course of the stream it follows, Furnace Brook, which begins on the eastern slopes of the
Blue Hills and meanders for about four miles from southwest to northeast through the middle of Quincy, ending where it meets the
Atlantic estuary known as Blacks Creek near Quincy Bay. The brook was named in the seventeenth century for its proximity to the
Winthrop Iron Furnace, also known as Braintree Furnace, the first iron
blast furnace established in what would become the United States. The furnace and forge operation was started in 1644 by
John Winthrop the Younger in the North Precinct of
Braintree, which became the separate town of Quincy in 1792.
Design The use of the land adjacent to Furnace Brook was first conceived by landscape architect
Charles Eliot, who had apprenticed with
Frederick Law Olmsted and later assumed leadership of Olmsted's design firm in 1893. Olmsted had been responsible for the development of
Central Park in
Manhattan and, with Eliot, had worked to create Boston's
Emerald Necklace, a string of connected parks and waterways. Eliot was instrumental in the founding of
The Trustees of Reservations and the public Metropolitan Parks Commission in the 1890s and envisioned an expansion of the parks network to areas surrounding Boston.
Construction Funding for the proposed parkway along Furnace Brook was passed by the
Massachusetts General Court in 1901. The proposed route of the parkway was soon also scheduled for use in directing a portion of a major sewer line from Boston to Nut Island at the end of
Hough's Neck in 1902. The western part of the parkway was both planned and completed first, with plans for the section from Wampatuck Road to Hancock Street submitted in 1903. Construction of the roadway began in 1904, with a major component, a granite-faced concrete bridge carrying the Granite Branch of the
New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad over the parkway route completed in 1906. Work on a stone and concrete bridge carrying the parkway over Blacks Creek began in the fall of 1915. Construction was finished later the next year and the completed Furnace Brook Parkway was officially opened for public travel on November 18, 1916.
Post-completion Following completion of the parkway the speed limit was set at twenty miles per hour. This has been increased to the current limit of thirty miles per hour; a previously legislated restriction against the placement of advertising signs along the road has always been enforced. A gas station at 507 Furnace Brook Parkway was added in 1929, but has been replaced by a newly constructed dance studio (2011-ish). The parkway route has been the same since completion in 1916, with the exception of one major interruption caused by the construction of the
Interstate Highway System in the 1950s. The
Southeast Expressway, which carries Interstate 93 along with
U.S. Route 1 and
Massachusetts Route 3, was constructed over the right-of-way of the former New York, New Haven and Hartford rail line in 1956–57. At the modern Exit 8, the old Granite Branch railroad bridge over the parkway was demolished, and a portion of the parkway was replaced with a large rotary and system of ramps to serve the limited access expressway. In 1997, the southbound exit ramp from the expressway was moved north to handle expected long queues of exiting
dump trucks moving dirt excavated from the
Big Dig construction project. The dirt removed was used to fill former granite quarries and create the land now occupied by the Granite Links at Quarry Hills golf complex located north of the parkway on Ricciuti Drive, which ends at the expressway southbound exit ramp for Furnace Brook Parkway. ==Route description==