According to Lawrence yesterday and today (1845-1918), direct railway communication was opened with Boston, Lowell and Salem, and Lawrence became an important railroad centre. The Boston & Maine moved between 5 and 7 miles of track originally laid through Andover for the Andover & Wilmington railway to loop through Lawrence, between April, 1845, and March, 1848. On February 28, 1848, passenger trainns crossed the Merrimack at the falls for the first time to the station on the north side of the river. The railroad bridge was built on the site of the first/original "Andover Bridge" constructed in 1793. On July 2, 1848, from the West the Lowell railway was completed between Lawrence and Lowell. The Essex railway, from the East, Lawrence to Salem, was opened on September 4, 1848. The Manchester and Lawrence railway,from the North, was opened in October, 1849.
By the early 20th century the city would have as many as three stations servicing 150 passenger trains daily . According to "A Field Guide to Southern New England Railroad Depots and Freight Houses" by John H. Roy, "the first depot in Lawrence was located in South Lawrence; it was a frame building, reputedly, at the corner of Market and Merrimack Streets, erected around 1848. It was enlarged only two years later." However, no official maps of the day show those streets as ever intersecting. "The second South Lawrence Station, built by the B&M, opened on June 3, 1872. This was a large one-story brick structure with a separate baggage house and American Express office." It was situated between so. Broadway and Andover streets where the Lowell and Lawrence RR and B&M tracks intersect. This station operated until around 1931 when the B&M built a new station 1/4 of mile up the tracks near the Central Bridge and closed all the remaining stations.