[1] In the 19th century, Jamaica Plain became one of the first streetcar suburbs in America and home to a significant portion of Boston's Emerald Necklace of parks, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.

[2] Shortly after the founding of Boston and Roxbury in 1630, William Heath's family and three others settled on land just south of Parker Hill in what is now Jamaica Plain.

[1] In the next few years, William Curtis, John May and others set up farms nearby along Stony Brook, which flowed from south to north from Turtle Pond (in Hyde Park) to an outlet in the Charles River marshes in the current filled-in Fens area of Boston.

During the 18th century, the farms of the Jamaica section of Roxbury transitioned from subsistence to market orientation, serving the growing Boston population.

The Minutemen from the Third Parish fought at Lexington and Bunker Hill under the command of Captain Lemuel Child and are commemorated on a plaque next to the Civil War Monument.

The units protected the road south to Dedham (Centre Street), where the American arsenal was kept, in case the British broke the siege of Boston.

In 1826, "hourlies" ran from Jamaica Plain to Roxbury and Boston on a regular schedule, and the 1830s brought larger "omnibuses" to carry the growing passenger base.

The first train line reached Jamaica Plain in 1834 when the Boston and Providence Rail Road began service, with special low "commuter" fares offered residents in 1839.

During the 1840s, as commuters from Boston settled in Jamaica Plain, the local market grew, with artisans and businesses - with proprietors living in the community - providing much of the needed products and services.

Many of the new residents were Irish and Catholic, and to serve their needs the Archdiocese of Boston began construction of St Thomas Aquinas Church on South Street, with a grammar school following in 1873.

In 1871, the Haffenreffer brewery opened near Boylston and Amory Streets, taking advantage of the Stony Brook aquifer and the presence of German immigrants in the area.

To the south, the B.F. Sturtevant Company opened an industrial fan factory in 1878 along the railroad tracks between Williams and Green Street, which grew to employ 500 employees.

In the 1880s, the Eblana and Park breweries and the American Brewing Company opened, taking advantage of local German and Irish immigrants to fill jobs.

Invented by Augustin Thompson in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1876, the company marketed the distinctively flavored Moxie to shift it from medicinal "tonic" to soft drink, much like Coca-Cola, and it outsold Coke in 1920.

[20][21] During the late 19th century, Jamaica Plain's housing stock grew with the commercial development, providing homes for workers in local businesses and commuters as well.

In order to avoid the labor strife that was common at the time, the company offered a park beside the factory, recreation rooms, a gym, library, dance hall, and sponsored sports teams that competed in local leagues.

In the late 19th century, Boston's Emerald Necklace of parks was designed and built by Frederick Law Olmsted, with much of the southern section of the connecting parkland in or bordering on Jamaica Plain.

The Arboretum was developed on land originally owned by the Weld family, and donated by Benjamin Bussey, with financial support from the will of James Arnold.

In time, the housing along the embankment came to be devalued, and property to the east of the train line was cut off from the higher income sections of the community.

In the 1980s, the Southwest Corridor in its present form was built, creating a parkway, bike path, and site for future Wake Up The Earth festivals in lieu of the highway, now situated atop the underground Orange Line.

[26] The construction of the proposed highway coupled with and possibly contributing to a decision by Boston banks to cut back mortgage lending (redline) there began a cycle of disinvestment which led to the deterioration of the housing stock, slumlording and abandonment particularly in the central neighborhood along the edges of the corridor.

After conducting a research project that documented a dramatic decrease in mortgage lending between 1968 and 1972, activists launched the Jamaica Plain Community Investment Plan.

In October 1974, the committee was also successful in securing a pledge from Gubernatorial candidate Michael Dukakis to require that state chartered banks disclose their lending patterns annually by ZIP code.

[38] According to former commissioner Greenwald: "Massachusetts success in getting the banks to reveal their lending policies was followed by similar actions in New York, California and Illinois.

With the new transit lines in place following the old train embankment, the Southwest Corridor park was built from Forest Hills north through the old Stony Brook valley.

In the 1980s low rents brought many students to the area, especially those who attended the Museum School, Mass Art, and Northeastern University, who often lived in collective households.

The area has a large number of Latin owned businesses and residents, and is the center of local festivals, churches, and activist groups, such as La Piñata,[55] the ¡Viva!

[58] The elimination of redlining and the stabilization of the real estate market in the late 1970s and the redevelopment of the Southwest Corridor set the stage for gentrification that began in the 1990s.

Buses connect Jamaica Plain with Roslindale, West Roxbury, Hyde Park, and suburban Dedham, Westwood and Walpole to the south, and the rest of Boston by street routes.

The E branch was "temporarily" suspended from Heath Street to Forest Hills in the mid-1980s, but proposals to restore the service have caused considerable tension in the area.