RANDOLPH /Spotless Town
A mysterious place called Spotless Town

The Patriot Ledger Area: 10.32 sq. mi.

POPULATION
2000: 30,963
2006: 30,625

Density: 2,878 residents/square mile
Median age: 40
Median household income: $63,959

FINANCES
Tax rate: $9.22 res./ $17.85 comm.
Town budget: $68.36 million
Average water/sewer bill: $697/year

HOUSING
Median home price (# sales)
2007: $306,000 (252)
2008: $279,750 (38 through March)
Median condo price
2007: $209,750 (62)
2008: $187,500 (8 through March)

SCHOOLS
Number of students: 3,450
Number of teachers: 240
H.S. grads to 4-yr. college: 63%
H.S. grads to 2-yr. college: 22%
Median SAT score (2006): 1370

You won't see any signs directing you to Spotless Town. Selectman William Alexopoulos, who has lived most of his life in North Randolph, recalls seeing the name on a plot plan or a deed when he was a member of the town's appeals board.

There's a listing on the secretary of state's list of "Archaic Community, District, Neighborhood, Section and Village Names in Massachusetts."

And, there's a reference in historical commission Chairman Henry Cooke's history of the town "Beneath the Elms."

So where is Spotless Town?

"There is some question as to what part of North Randolph it is," Cooke said.

The strictest definition is the area between North Main Street and Great Pond and the Upper Reservoir, which was developed as a summer resort more than a century ago. Cooke said some thought it included much of the town north of Oak and Chestnut streets.

People would travel by streetcar from Boston to the area, attracted by activities at the Randolph Grove picnic area, Cooke said. There were boat races on Great Pond, which is one of the reservoirs supplying water to Randolph, Holbrook and Braintree.

Interviews with a half-dozen current residents of the neighborhood found none had heard the name.

Cooke said it's not known how the area got the name, but it had to do with Sapolio, a soap compound that was heavily advertised when the summer colony took shape.

"I've never been quite clear how the soap connection fits in," he said. "I've never seen it in print."

A 1936 article in Time magazine said soap company jingles of the era described Spotless Town as a "mythical Sapolio seat of immaculacy."

Cooke thinks it has something to do with the white linen or cotton fashions of the era.

When the Great Depression hit in 1929, many of the summer cottages were converted into year-round use.

John Smith's home on Pond Street is a former summer cottage, originally built in 1905. A construction worker, Smith has added on to the house in the 16 years he's lived there, making it a three-bedroom house he shares with his wife and son.

Smith moved to Randolph from the Fields Corner section of Dorchester. He likes the fact he has a driveway for parking and easy access to job sites in the city.

"It's quiet," he said.

Marie Nelson has lived in her Cape-style house on Morgan Street for two decades.

A nurse at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, she heard about the area from friends who lived in Randolph. Nelson said she likes the town's diverse population.

"People come and go, but everyone is nice," said Nelson, taking a break from planting flowers in her front-yard garden.

Ray Smith has watched the neighborhood change. He grew up there there during the 1950s and 1960s, and moved back when he bought his mother's home on North Lillian Street.

"There used to be a lot of woods here,'said Smith, a retired construction worker. "There were less than half of the houses there are now."

Bill Ander, a real estate agent with Kierman Realtors in Randolph, said "there's quite a mix of houses" in the neighborhood, everything from small converted cottages and bungalows to newer, larger split-level and Colonial-style homes.

Prices in the area range from about $200,000 for a former cottage to $240,000 for a three-bedroom ranch to as high as $400,000 for a four-bedroom Colonial.