Where would you find the site of Lowell's first kindergarten, first day nursery, first night school, and first foray into community education? Where would find one of the city's few buildings remaining from the 1820s? Would you go to one of the city's downtown parking garages? Probably not, but that's just where you'd see all…Read more Lowell’s Early History, Hidden in Plain Sight.
Photographs capture a moment in time, a moment that begins evaporating just as soon as the shutter releases. Be it seconds, minutes, years, or decades later, that photograph cannot be recreated, because the moment is gone, replaced with the next, which itself disappears into another.
An article by Lowell Historical Society Curator Ryan W. Owen appears in the May/June 2016 issue of Merrimack Valley Magazine, which hits Greater Lowell newsstands soon. Lowell has lots to see, and do! Some of Lowell's best history-related points of attraction are featured in the article, A Peek into Lowell's Past. The list includes the downtown…Read more Merrimack Valley Magazine Feature! A Peek into Lowell’s Past
At the Lowell Historical Society, we get to see and study some really interesting artifacts, like the wooden stake from the Central Bridge fire of 1882 or the Hi Hat Guy from Lowell's Hi-Hat Rollaway, or even the Box of Cinders from the Pollard's Department Store fire of 1926. A lot of these, we inherited from long…Read more Among the Artifacts: Merrimack Mills Employee Badges from Long Ago
Do you remember shopping at Lowell's Giant Store? For decades, the Giant Store promised 'giant savings' and helped form the core of Downtown Lowell's department store heyday that included other iconic shops like the Bon Marché, Pollards, and Cherry & Webb.
Things have to get fairly dire before your entire student body, well, 97% of your student body, boycotts your school due to "dangerous conditions". But, that's precisely what happened at Lowell's Riverside School on a Monday morning in late March, 1971. Of the school's 205 students in Grades K through 5, just six showed up…Read more Lowell’s Riverside School: The Lowell Parents’ Strike – 1971
If you've spent any time researching ancestors, or the history of your town, or even history in general, you've likely come across old group photographs. A workplace outing from long ago, an annual gathering of some institution or society, or maybe a family gathering. If you've stared into the faces of those who gathered for…Read more Lost Stories and Found Mysteries: Old Group Photographs
