History of the District

The Box District is a former industrial area located in the center of Chelsea. It was an attractive area for businesses because the Boston & Albany railroad ran nearby. The Box District gets its name from various box manufacturing companies that operated in the area as early as 1903, when the Russell Box Company began operations at the foot of Gerrish Avenue. After the Great Fire of 1908, the firm set up shop temporarily in a building on Marginal Street. In 1911, it returned to Gerrish Avenue to a new, three story brick factory with an engine house near the railroad tracks. The company's business continued to grow and in 1916, Harlow Russell and two associates founded the Specialty Automatic Machine Company, which developed and manufactured paper box machinery for Russell and other box companies. The new firm shared space in the Gerrish Avenue buildings. By 1921, Russell Box was the largest manufacturer in New England of folding boxes for candy, eggs, and ice cream. In this year, another manufacturer of folding boxes, Standard Box Company, set up a factory nearby at 34 Gerrish Avenue.

In 1926, when it outgrew its Chelsea location, Russell Box established a second division in an old auto plant in Waltham. Later, in 1931, it consolidated all operations under one roof, moving the Waltham operation and the Specialty Machine Co. into a former textile mill in West Medford. Two years later, the Chelsea plant also moved there. But the machine company soon returned to Chelsea, to make paper cans. In 1944-45, with an increase in business due to the war, Russell Box, too, moved back to the Gerrish Avenue factory. The firm changed its name to Chelsea Carton Company, although Harlow Russell still ran it. Specialty Automatic Machine Company absorbed this firm and eventually moved it to Burlington, MA. Atlas Bedding, and subsequently Spring Air Mattress occupied the buildings more recently. These companies were active until the 1960's. Since that time, this area of Chelsea has sat dormant.