page_title: Spectacle Island (Massachusetts)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Spectacle Island (Massachusetts) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: This image of the marina, cafe, and visitor's center on Spectacle Island (with Thompson Island in the background) was created on 23 June 2007 by User:DickClarkMises and is released by the same into the public domain.
context_page_description: Spectacle Island is a 105-acre island in Boston Harbor, 4 miles offshore of downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It is part of the city of Boston. The island has a varied history, and today is a public park with a marina, visitor center, cafe, lifeguarded swimming beach, and five miles of walking trails, forming part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. It is served all year by ferries from Boston, and on weekends and summer weekdays by a shuttle boat to and from nearby islands.
context_section_description: Starting in the early 19th century, the island was used exclusively for its relative remoteness from Boston.  Two hotels were built in 1847, only to be closed by police ten years later when it was discovered they were used for gambling and other illicit activities. 
  A horse rendering plant was built on Spectacle Island in 1857, followed by a city trash incinerator that remained active until 1935.  When the incinerator closed, trash was simply dumped on the island for the next thirty years. A bulldozer was supposedly swallowed up by the trash sometime during the 1950s.  The island remained a smelly, leaking dump until the 1990s.
  Two sets of range lights were erected on the island by the United States Lighthouse Service. The Spectacle Island Range Lights were established in 1897 to mark the last leg of the channel into Boston itself, past Governor's Island; they were not long-lived and were discontinued in 1913. The Broad Sound Channel Inner Range Lights were first lit in 1903 and discontinued around 1950; these indicated the middle leg of the trip. No trace of any of these lights remains.
  When the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel Project, or the Big Dig, began work in Boston in 1992, some of the project's excavated dirt and clay was used to resurface the island.  The island was covered and built up by dirt, capped with two feet of clay, and covered with two to five feet of topsoil.  Thousands of trees were planted, and paths, buildings, and a dock were built.
  Spectacle Island opened to the public in June 2006 for use as a recreational area with hiking trails, a beach, a visitors' center with cafe, and a marina with 38 boat slips for visitors.
caption: The marina on Spectacle Island in summer as viewed from one of the foot-trails from the North Summit. Thompson Island can be seen in the background.
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