No one can find a record of when Harvard’s first traffic light was installed. Town Administrator Paul Cohen said that he did not know and added that it was researched and that “no one could come up with that date.” 

The earliest reference to the intersection is in 1970 in the Report of the Selectmen: “The state has surveyed and is planning to rebuild Route 111 from Harvard Center to Route 495 as part of a total plan which will continue all the way through Boxborough and West Acton and terminate at Route 2.” 

In 1972, an article at Town Meeting added a blinking yellow light in the school area for the “children’s safety.” Paul Willard said that originally it was a blinking yellow light both ways and was changed during the time that Malcolm Henry was a selectmen.

Department of Public Works Director Rich Nota said that he expects the new red lenses to replace the yellow lenses this week, although officially the change went into effect immediately after the vote November 7.  He said that the town had to buy used lenses because the traffic light is so old that the company no longer makes replacement lenses.  Nota, new to the job, did not know when the town originally purchased the traffic light. 

Traffic backed up at a town-center traffic sign during World War I. (Photos courtesy of Harvard Historical Society)

Signs on the left side of the intersection in the 1920s and ’30s point out 110 and 111, with Ayer, Littleton, Lowell and Amesbury on the left; Boxborough, West Acton, Concord and Boston on the right.  Blur on the left is a moving car.