That Harvard Brewery building stares at you, like it has a secret. Because it does. When you pull in to park at Lowell's Target, those twelve little windows peer forward, each covered with corrugated sheet metal that's been painted the color of pistachio ice cream. (Why?) That Harvard Brewery building has ghosts like anything that…Read more Harvard Brewery – A Lowell Tale of Fires, Wartime Enemy Sympathizers, and Prohibition Raids
Lowell Massachusetts
Old Group Photos: Someone Else’s Ancestors
Maybe you love to stare into the faces of those captured in long-ago photographs and search for a lost image of a long-dead ancestor. Maybe you just like old photos. In our family, we’ve had an old group photograph from 1924 for … well, since it was taken in 1924. The story behind the photograph…Read more Old Group Photos: Someone Else’s Ancestors
Lowell’s Early History, Hidden in Plain Sight.
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.
3 Quick Tips to Unlock the Secrets of an Old Lowell Photo
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.
Merrimack Valley Magazine Feature! A Peek into Lowell’s Past
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
Among the Artifacts: Merrimack Mills Employee Badges from Long Ago
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
Remembering Lowell’s Giant Store
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.
Lowell’s Riverside School: The Lowell Parents’ Strike – 1971
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
Lost Stories and Found Mysteries: Old Group Photographs
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
All in the Same Building: A Jail, Catholic School and later Condos
Many in Lowell recall the vast granite and brick buildings at Thorndike's intersection with Highland as the Keith Academy building. Before Keith Academy, though, the buildings housed the Lowell Jail. The Lowell Jail was the city's second, replacing the first which had been located at the corner of Dutton and Cushing streets, and dated from…Read more All in the Same Building: A Jail, Catholic School and later Condos
