The year was 1954.
Eisenhower was president, Cadillacs were as big as aircraftcarriers, the Cold War in full throttle. Yet to come: the VietnamWar, Black Power, the Beatles, free love, the EPA, Muppets, theInternet, grunge, Seinfeld, cellphones, Eminem, Monica Lewinsky, J.Lo, Viagra, Iraq wars I and II, and "Matrix." George W. Bush was 7years old. Osama Bin Laden had not yet been born.
In Shrewsbury, the topic of sewers or schools was always sure todraw a crowd. And the town's 12,000 residents knew that sewerssignaled just the beginning of big changes to come - and its openTown Meeting was not the way to manage matters.
That year, the town established a representative Town Meeting,town manager, and Board of Selectmen. A half century later, thepopulation stands at 31,400, and growth continues to be the bigissue.
"I think fundamentally that the same problems exist today as theydid then, only more so, because we have so many more improvements anddevelopments," said John Kehoe, a Shrewsbury native elected to thefirst representative Town Meeting and to every one since.
Kehoe, who declined to give his age, was among present and formerofficials who marked the 50th anniversary of the change in governmentrecently at a Town Hall commemoration.
In the 1950s, Shrewsbury was bracing for the postwar populationboom. With Worcester to the west and Framingham to the east, the townwas a desirable spot for prospective suburbanites.
The old government, which allowed any registered voter to vote atTown Meeting, could not cope with the new challenges.
"It took an hour to register everybody," recalled Randall Dean,79, a lifelong Shrewsbury resident who also has been a half-centurystalwart at Town Meeting.
"Once you got a discussion going, it became almost impossible, itlasted so long. If you could get your group in there and take overthe seats, you could force things through."
At the time, Shrewsbury looked like the perfect set for "OurTown." The town common area was less cluttered with stores. Workingfarms dotted the rolling hills. For many years, townspeople had triedto get the railroad to pass through Shrewsbury to encourage moreindustrial and commercial growth, to no avail.
Industry remained light, farmland was giving way to residentialtract development, and Shrewsbury was poised to become largely abedroom community, said June Tomaiolo, 58, who began her tenure in1981 as the first woman elected to the Board of Selectmen.
"I think Shrewsbury was in a good position to grow," she said."We're nestled between [interstates] 290, 495, and the Mass. Pike."
The new representative Town Meeting could move more rapidly torespond to the changing times, said Dean, making the necessarychanges in zoning, for instance, that would clear the way for housingdevelopments.
Accompanying development was the demand for new schools.
Richard Carney, 76, who served as town manager for 40 yearsbeginning in 1954, recalled the difficulty of persuading Town Meetingof future school needs.
Carney pointed to the high school, built in 1957 for the then-unheard-of sum of $3 million. The new high school, by comparison,cost nearly $70 million.
Even more fractious was debate over the sewer system. By the1950s, residents were coping with overflowing cesspools, anddevelopers found that many parts of town were unsuitable for septicsystems. Town Meeting was hesitant to fund yet another $3 millionproject, but members were finally won over by Carney's research.
In 1978, the big controversy was whether to rezone property onSouth Street to allow the Worcester Foundation for ExperimentalBiology to do recombinant DNA experiments, said Reuben Lebeaux, 79, aselectman for six years. It was at that facility, later bought by theUniversity of Massachusetts, where the birth control pill wasdeveloped.
Lebeaux described the DNA debate as "hysterical." Townspeople wereconcerned that random DNA would "escape into the atmosphere and harmpeople," Carney added.
Route 9 - in the 1950s, home to dry cleaners, motels, and theWhite City Amusement Park - posed a problem for a town whoseinhabitants enjoyed increasing wealth and wanted gracious environs toaccompany it. Zoning at the time precluded office parks, with theirlush green frontage, but did allow narrow strip malls, Lebeaux said.
When Digital Equipment Corp. came to town in 1981, though,selectmen were quick to accept it, paving the way for Town Meeting toapprove rezoning for the computer giant.
Not so with megamalls. Residents jammed a selectmen's meeting in1986, sending the owners of Pyramid Mall packing.
Today, Lebeaux's son, John, 48, is a selectman, wrestling toowith the consequences of growth. But there are new twists.
Medical and high-tech businesses have attracted a new community ofethnically diverse professionals to the once virtually all-white,Christian town.
"There's been very interesting cultural diversification," Lebeauxsaid. "It's made us a stronger community, even keeping us moreattuned to world events."
Connie Paige can be reached at cpaige@globe.com.
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