Massachusetts built a powder magazine in 1818 on what was then known as Captain’s Island in Cambridgeport. Over the next half-century, the magazine was used to store gunpowder and ammunition, lending its name to the area and the street leading to it (Magazine Street). But in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, it was deemed a public danger to have such a large amount of gunpowder so close to a residential area, and the magazine was emptied of its contents and soon fell into disrepair. At the end of the 19th century, the city of Cambridge decided to turn the area into a park with a swimming beach along the Charles River, and the old magazine was converted into a bathhouse that soon attracted upward of 60,000 bathers annually.
For Cantabrigians at the turn of the 20th century, the presence of a swimming beach and its accompanying bathhouse was not merely an enjoyable leisure activity. Many city residents at the time did not have regular access to bathing facilities at their homes, and the city’s maintenance of its bathhouses served not only a recreational but also a public health function. Fresh Pond had long been off-limits to bathers (at least officially) to protect it as the source of Cambridge’s drinking water, and Magazine Beach became one of the most popular bathing spots in the city; providing residents with the facilities to keep themselves clean was considered the duty of the city government.
The Cambridge Sentinel was already reporting by 1911 that “the large crowds that have made use of the bathing facilities at Magazine Beach, have shown the inefficiency of the bathhouse equipment. The number of bathing suits was so limited that many were forced to don wet ones or go without their dip. But the most crying evil of all was the fact that the rafts which were left on the ice all winter were unable to bear the load required. The life-guards were often called upon to act as carpenters and at times their attention was wholly taken from the water and accidents might have happened.”
Similarly, a letter to the editor of the Cambridge Chronicle in July 1911 opines that, although the writer is not from Cambridge, he was “shocked and disgusted that a city so enlightened should tolerate such neglect … The bathrooms are a disgrace, with hinges off the doors and other signs of decay. The toilet for men is an old country dry closet and too filthy to be described, much less to be used.” He describes the lack of running water, “even a hose,” for bathers to rinse themselves, and ends his letter with a plea: “Let the poorer people in Cambridge have a fair chance to be clean.”
The public appeal for adequate sanitary facilities, including bathhouses at public swimming areas, stemmed not only from a desire to see working-class and poor Cantabrigians have access to hygienic conditions for their own sakes, but also as a means to combat the spread of diseases such as smallpox and influenza, both of which were public health threats in early 20th century Cambridge. Building communal bathing facilities at Magazine Beach and other public swimming areas also shifted the responsibility for providing adequate sanitation from the individual builders of housing to the city (and later state) government.
For the next several years, the City Council debated when and how to improve the Magazine Beach bathhouse, with plans presented, scrapped and redrawn. In November 1915, a fire destroyed the wooden structures at the beach that had been used as dressing rooms, which the Sentinel described as “somewhat dilapidated, [and] burned like tinder.” Even after this destruction, it took a full two years more for the city to commit the required $25,000 to build a replacement bathhouse; work finally began in late 1917, but labor disputes and a materials shortage postponed its opening until the beginning of the 1919 swimming season. The new facilities featured “a main building and two open wings with roofed closets, to the left for men and to the right for women. The building and floors will be of concrete and the entire structure will be fireproof … The building will be lighted by electricity, and will contain every modern bathhouse improvement, such as interior shower baths, lavatories, emergency room, etc.”
The Cambridge city government had a very short time to enjoy the fruits of its labor, however; in late 1920 the city transferred control of Magazine Beach and its new bathhouse to the Metropolitan District Commission, which operated the beach for the next several decades. In the 1940s, when bathing facilities were much more common even in the most modest Cambridge houses, the commission discontinued use of the bathhouse for beachgoers, converting it to storage. In 1949, concerns about pollution in the Charles led the MDC to close the beach to swimmers entirely, and a public pool was built in 1952 to provide another swimming option. Today, the stone bathhouse serves as a nature center operated by the Massachusetts Audubon Society.
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