A sketch that appeared with the September 1947 Telegraph story on a Nashua man's proposal to create a rotary atop Library Hill gives an idea of what it may have looked like. At the bottom is Library Hill, the first right turn shown is Lock Street, the left hand turn is the start of Amherst Street; Concord Street goes off to the right; the street that runs off Amherst Street at upper left is Abbott Street; and the circle in the middle would be a newly configured Soldiers and Sailors Monument, around which all traffic would revolve.

I remember, as I’m sure many of my fellow Nashuans of at least 20 years also do, when certain factions of local folks took umbrage with the city’s rather creative proposal to solve, at least for the most part, the increasing traffic woes at a pair of city intersections.

One of those had been an issue for years, and was on the verge of graduating to a white-knuckle experience. The other was a sort of johnny-come-lately pain in the rear bumper that was achieving maturity at a record pace.

The existing one, as any driver who frequented Rivier University, Hayward’s Ice Cream or Nashua Country Club would be quick to agree, was the “three-legged” intersection of Main and South Main streets.

The other one went from a typical residential zone T-intersection at Broad Street and Coburn Avenue, where a single stop sign easily controlled the normally light traffic flow – until, that is, a new road called Titan Way turned it into a four-way intersection.

And Titan Way wasn’t built as just another cul-de-sac of 10 or 12 new homes or condos off Broad Street – it was to be the access road to the newly completed Nashua High School North.

I don’t visit NHS North often, but I’d bet the hundreds of teachers, staff and students who do so regularly are grateful the city put in a roundabout – no, not a “rotary,” but a “roundabout” – rather than a typical four-way intersection controlled by a network of traffic lights.

As I mentioned, there were pockets of “anti-roundabout” adherents who for whatever reason took issue with the city’s decision to install the roundabout – perhaps because it was “new” and “different” concept for Nashua, and after all, “intersections with traffic lights have worked just fine for years.”

Nashua’s pioneer roundabout, so to speak, is the one that alleviated most of the traffic problems at Main and South Main streets. It was installed long enough ago that it’s hard to remember what it was like trying to negotiate, say, a left-hand turn from Main onto South Main, or taking a left from South Main onto Main Street while hoping you’ll live long enough to get your ice cream at Hayward’s.

Our roundabouts came to mind recently when I stumbled across a vintage copy of our predecessor-in-name, The Nashua Telegraph, which in the Sept. 16, 1947 issue carried on the front page a story headlined “Offers Plan for Traffic Circle, Top of Libary Hill.”

(Editors years ago often began headlines with a verb; why isn’t known).

The “who” offering the plan was a Nashua man by the name of Oliver H. Lufkin, about whom little is known except that he apparently spent a good deal of time observing pre-World War II issue clunkers and new, shiny post-war sedans coming and going up, down and around Libary Hill and the triangle-shaped Soldiers and Sailors Monument.

In a departure from the norm, Telegraph editors decided to print Lufkin’s proposal, with his fairly lengthy explanations, “purely as a matter for public consideration,” an editor wrote.

It was noted that the Telegraph “believes only that there is a need for improved traffic conditions in the city,” and that printing Lufkin’s proposal didn’t mean the newspaper was endorsing it.

Lufkin wrote that he put together his proposal “in view of the horrible automobile accident … on Warren Street in which three children were almost instantly killed and another seriously injured,” adding that he hoped his proposal would bring attention to “city officials and citizens of Nashua generally … the importance of eliminating the hazardous cross-traffic system at the junction of Concord, Lock and Amherst streets before some reckless or inexperienced operator makes a wrong move at that (location) and causes still further deaths.”

It seems odd that Lufkin compared a tragic crash on Warren Street – a short, narrow dead-end street off Bridge Street – to traffic issues on Library Hill; the two locations are about as different as night and day.

Lufkin then launches into a long, highly-detailed explanation rife with measurements and specifications, such as “a circle, approximately 112 feet in diameter, with no sidewalks surrounding it … a roadway would be constructed on Concord Street at the eastern edge of the circle … would measure 36 feet from curve to circle.

“A six-foot sidewalk would be constructed on the extreme north (side) of the circle … taking six feet off the corner of the lot to make the swing into Nashville street much easier.”

Traffic going south on Concord Street would be routed onto Nashville Street, while all cars heading north up Library Hill toward Amherst Street would go straight ahead and be routed onto Nashville Street as well.

“This method,” Lufkin wrote, “would require one-way traffic completely around the circle.”

Well, that would certainly be a good thing.

Lufkin noted toward the end of his “guest editorial” that the proposed width of some sections of the rotary “may seem rather narrow, but if Washington Street in Boston at the junction of Summer and Winter streets,” which is “only 24 feet wide,” carries thousands of cars in two directions every day, then his proposed rotary in Nashua should easily handle one-way traffic.

Lufkin closed by noting that he found it “quite remarkable” that given “the uncertainty that motorists driving both ways encounter at the lower point in the triangle (the monument), that there has not been a serious calamity.”

How far Lufkin’s proposal got in City Hall – assuming it made it that far – isn’t known, but at last check, there’s no Lufkin Memorial Rotary, and not even a king-size roundabout, atop Library Hill.

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears weekly in The Sunday Telegraph. He may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

Newsletter