Wellesley, Massachusetts
Wellesley (/ˈwɛlzli/) is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Wellesley is part of Greater Boston. The population was 29,550 at the time of the 2020 census.[3] Wellesley College, Babson College, and a campus of Massachusetts Bay Community College are located in the town.
Wellesley, Massachusetts
United States
1660
1881
- Thomas Ulfelder
- Ann-Mara Lanza
- Beth Sullivan Woods
- Colette Aufranc
- Lise Olney
10.49 sq mi (27.2 km2)
10.18 sq mi (26.4 km2)
0.31 sq mi (0.8 km2)
141 ft (43 m)
29,550
2,902.75/sq mi (1,120.76/km2)
25-74175
0618332
History[edit]
Wellesley was settled in the 1600s as part of Dedham, Massachusetts. It was subsequently a part of Needham, Massachusetts called West Needham, Massachusetts. On October 23, 1880, West Needham residents voted to secede from Needham, and the town of Wellesley was later christened by the Massachusetts legislature on April 6, 1881. The town was named after the estate of local benefactor Horatio Hollis Hunnewell.[4][5]
Wellesley's population grew by over 80 percent around the 1920s.[6]
Arts and culture[edit]
Wellesley's Wonderful Weekend[edit]
Each year the weekend before Memorial Day, the town sponsors the annual Wellesley's Wonderful Weekend, which includes the annual veterans' parade and fireworks. On May 18, 2008, The Beach Boys performed in a concert on the Wellesley High School athletic fields in front of an estimated 10,000 town residents and fans. The funds for the performance, an estimated $250,000, were made as a gift by an anonymous donor and lifelong fan of the band.
Wellesley Symphony Orchestra[edit]
The Wellesley Symphony Orchestra presents classical, pops, and family concerts at Mass Bay Community College at its Wellesley campus.
Religious institutions[edit]
The town of Wellesley is home to several religious institutions. Wellesley contains two Jewish institutions including Temple Beth Elohim and the Wellesley Chabad Center. Predominantly Christian Wellesley contains many churches, including Wellesley Congregational Church, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, St. Paul's Catholic Church, Christ Church United Methodist, Wellesley Hills Congregational Church (also known as The Hills Church), First Church of Christ, Scientist, St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, the Metrowest Baptist Church, Milestone Wellesley, and Unitarian Universalist Society of Wellesley Hills, and Wellesley Friends Meeting (Quakers).
Horticulture[edit]
The Wellesley College campus includes greenhouses and the H. H. Hunnewell Arboretum. This is not to be confused with the neighboring private H. H. Hunnewell estate. The Elm Bank Horticulture Center is home to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Although the entrance is in Wellesley, access is over a small private bridge over the Charles River, so Elm Bank is therefore in the neighboring town of Dover.
Recent construction[edit]
The town's historic 19th-century inn was demolished to make way for condominiums and mixed-use development in 2006.[22] The Wellesley Country Club clubhouse, which is the building where the town was founded, was demolished in 2008, and a new clubhouse was built.[4] The town's pre-World War II high school building was torn down and replaced with a brand new high school finished in 2012.[23] The entire 1960s-style Linden Street strip-mall has been replaced by "Linden Square"—a shopping district that includes a flagship Roche Bros. supermarket, restaurants, cafes, clothing stores, along with a mixture of national chains and local shops.[24]
Library[edit]
Wellesley opened its new Free Library building in 2003, which is part of the Minuteman Library Network. Due to the structure of budget override votes and perhaps the size of the new main branch of the library, the two branch libraries—one in Wellesley Hills, which was purpose-built to be a branch library in the 1920s, another in Wellesley Fells—closed in the summer of 2006. The branch libraries reopened in September 2008.[25] The main library branch near Wellesley Square underwent a major interior renovation in 2021.[26]