Ryan W. Owen, Writer and Photographer
If you’ve spent any time in Downtown Lowell, you’ve surely passed Page’s Clock in Kearney Square on Merrimack Street. The clock, refurbished in the 1990’s, has been a Downtown Lowell landmark since the D.L. Page Company moved its operations into the nearby building at 16-18 Merrimack Street in May 1913. As its advertisements claimed, the […]
Read MoreIn those long ago days before cellphones, speed dialing, and stored numbers, folks like Tommy Tutone telephoned girls like ‘Jenny’ by actually dialing 867-5309. If he was a modern type, he may have even punched the number into the telephone’s touchtone keypad, an innovation that was several years old by the time the song was […]
Read MoreOn April 2, 2012, at 9 AM (EST), the National Archives will release the 1940 US census schedules at http://1940census.archives.gov/. The release, administered by The National Archives in partnership with archives.com, will mark the first time a census has been released online. Site visitors will gain free access to view, search, print, and download the 1940 census […]
Read MoreTo mourn the loss of the Bon Marché Department Store in Downtown Lowell is almost like mourning the loss of a beloved grandparent. On the day the Bon Marché closed, its faithful came out one last time to reflect on their relationship with the store, and to discuss among themselves what its loss would mean to […]
Read MoreToday, Downtown Lowell’s Memorial Hall is mostly known for the Pollard Memorial Library it houses, named for the city’s late mayor Samuel S. Pollard. For its first 90 years, until its renaming in 1981, Lowell residents and visitors knew it as the Lowell City Library. The library’s building, Memorial Hall, was built to remember the […]
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Most family historians have THAT box. The box always looks roughly the same. It’s the box that belonged to the toaster your mother had three toasters ago. Or, maybe it’s a shoebox for a pair of long-lost boat shoes from Thom McAn or a gift box from Anderson Little (remember them?). Maybe it’s a bag […]
Read MoreOn a cool, cloudy Saturday afternoon in early May 1967, two men simultaneously spotted the billowing smoke escaping from the first-story windows of Sacred Heart School’s “new building” on its Moore Street campus in Lowell, Massachusetts. John J. McWilliams, an off-duty police officer, ran and activated the fire alarm at a nearby fire-box. John Sickles, […]
Read MoreOne of the more interesting aspects of writing a blog is seeing which topics attract the most interest. In mid-December, I wrote a post about the Spanish flu (link below) and its spread across Massachusetts in 1918 and 1919. Since then, it’s been one of my most popular posts (placing fourth most popular of the […]
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During New England‘s Blizzard of 1888, also known as the Great White Hurricane, over four feet of snow fell in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The storm dumped as much as 40 inches of snow in New York and New Jersey. In a world before road salt and snowblowers, the Great White Hurricane suspended communication and travel […]
Read MoreSo, say you’re writing a scene about Edwardian-era police officers in New England, or researching the life and times of a police officer ancestor. Or, perhaps you’re trying to get an idea of how people got into trouble with the law in the first years of the twentieth century. You’ll need to know why Edwardian-era […]
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Forgotten New England 