ASHLAND

Telechron

Around the same time that the local rail lines were in decline, the inventor Henry E. Warren developed the Warren Synchronizing Timer in 1916, which made synchronous electric clocks possible by keeping alternating current flowing from power plants at a consistent sixty cycles per second. Warren founded Telechron, which, in partnership with General Electric. At its height in the 1950s, Telechron employed 2,000 people, or roughly one-third of Ashland. GE manufactured electric clocks in Ashland until 1979, when it sold to Timex. Thirteen years later, the Telechron plant was closed for good. A Warren Synchronizing Timer is on display at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History in Washington D.C., and the high school sports teams are called "The Clockers".

20th century

For most of the 20th century, Ashland's population remained slow in growth, until the post-war boom beginning in the 1950s. During that period, Ashland grew from a far-removed rural town 22 miles (35 km) west of Boston to a primarily residential suburb by the 1980s. Over time, many farms and open spaces have given way to housing, although some untouched land still remains, including the Ashland Town Forest, Ashland State Park, Warren Woods, and land comprising the beach and dam portions of Hopkinton State Park.

Two members of the Ashland Police Department have died in the line of duty. Patrolman Louis Duncan Phipps died on June 10, 1942, four days after he was injured attempting to subdue an intoxicated man at a dinner dance. Patrolman Charles E. Cadorette died on September 11, 1967, from a gunshot wound suffered when he attempted to disarm a person who had stolen a car. Cadorette's partner, Robert Gonfrade, was also shot during the incident, but managed to return fire, resulting in the death of the man who had shot Cadorette. Gonfrade recovered from his injuries and later served as Ashland's chief of police from 1973 to 1994.

Four members of the Ashland Fire Department have died in the line of duty. On August 21, 1963, three members of the department—Chief Charles Moran, Lt. Norman E. Barry, and Firefighter John Rebenacker—were killed when a fuel tank exploded while they were providing mutual aid at a fire in neighboring Framingham. Firefighter Edward J. Bessey was killed on February 23, 1966, when his car was struck by a train as he was driving to the fire station to respond to a call.

Massachusetts Route 135 and Massachusetts Route 126 pass through Ashland. Route 135 is dominated by older residential development of varying density and is also part of the route for the Boston Marathon, which began in Ashland on Pleasant Street until the start was moved to Hopkinton's Main Street in 1924. Route 126 has developed rapidly since the 1980s, as farms have given way to shopping centers and condominiums. A part of the draw of Ashland, and one that has been publicized in recent years, is its "ideal" location about halfway between the cities of Boston and Worcester. The town has its own stop on the Framingham/Worcester Line of the MBTA Commuter Rail and also has nearby access to both I-90 and I-495. I-90 briefly passes through the northernmost part of Ashland, but there is no interchange there.

Ashland is considered part of MetroWest, which also includes the nearby towns of Framingham, Holliston, and Hopkinton. Hopkinton is Ashland's longstanding rival in a traditional Thanksgiving Day football game, a rivalry with roots in the formation of the town and the resulting 1846 dispute concerning Ashland's fire engine Megunko 1.

Nyanza

The US Color and Chemical Company, later named New England Aniline Works, Inc., and finally The Nyanza Color and Chemical Company, had a dye-manufacturing plant in Ashland. The plant opened in 1917 when American entry into World War I cut off the supply of dyes from Germany, then the world's principal source. In 1971, the factory was identified as a hazard when pollution was discovered in the nearby Sudbury River. The site was placed on the Superfund National Priority List in 1982 when heavy metals and organochlorides were discovered in the soil and water near the site. It was also deemed probable that particles of mercuric sulfate were blown into the air. In 1998, Trustees settled natural resource damages (NRD) claims with the responsible parties at the Nyanza Chemical Waste Dump Superfund Site for $3 million. $230,769 of the settlement was allocated for groundwater resources.

In 2006, the Massachusetts State Department of Public Health released a study that found that people who grew up in Ashland between the late 1960s and early 1980s and swam in the waters near Nyanza had a 200–300% higher incidence of cancer than those who were not exposed to the chemicals. In 2011, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of Waste Site Cleanup's NRD program settled with the slowly-going-bankrupt Nyanza for $3 million, which with interest has grown to almost $4 million. The Nyanza case had previously been at the NRD program of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. In 2016, proposed housing near Nyanza site raised alarm in Ashland. In 2020, the EPA proposed a remedy to clean up groundwater near the site, the final operable unit (phase) of the site cleanup.