{"nrhp_refnum":"73000310","name":"Quincy Granite Railway Incline","other_names":["Granite Railway Incline"],"category":"structure","location":{"address":"Mullin Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Quincy","county":"Norfolk County","state":"MA","lat":42.245422079000036,"lon":-71.03663782899997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1973-06-19","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Transportation"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A surviving 130-foot section of an inclined granite-block railway bed at the end of Mullin Avenue in Quincy, Massachusetts, built in 1830 to reach the Pine Hill Ledge Quarry. It was designed by Gridley Bryant and is owned by the City of Quincy.","why_significant":"The incline is one of the few remaining parts of the Granite Railway, described as the first commercial use of rails in the United States. It shows Gridley Bryant's engineering solution to an 84-foot rise using a gravity plane. It also symbolizes the transportation revolution of the mid-nineteenth century.","narrative":"At the end of Mullin Avenue in Quincy, about 130 feet of a granite-block railway incline survives among defunct quarries. It was built in 1830 as part of the Granite Railway, which carried stone for the Bunker Hill Monument from Quincy to the Neponset River in Milton. Engineer Gridley Bryant designed the original incline, 315 feet long at a 15-degree angle, to overcome an 84-foot rise blocking access to the Pine Hill quarry. Granite sleepers laid on an excavated and filled bed carried the cars, which were controlled by a chain and braking device. Regulation tracks were laid over it in 1901, and in 1920 steel channels and a steam-powered cable replaced them. The incline worked until the early 1940s. Two commemorative pillars stand at its base. The railway is described as the first commercial use of rails in the United States, and Bryant's inventions there influenced later railroad equipment.","period_of_significance":"1826 (specific date listed)","architect_builder":"Gridley Bryant (engineer and projector)","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Condition listed as fair; the incline operated until the early 1940s, the top section has been removed, and the plaques on the commemorative pillars were removed by vandals. The site is listed as unoccupied and open to the public.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:54.365731-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/44/7964/63796444/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/73000310.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63796444","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":null},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/norfolk-county/quincy-granite-railway-incline-73000310/"}