Lowell National Historical Park

How to Get There

From Boston (30 mi): Take I‑93 N to I‑495 N, then take Exit 89C onto the Lowell Connector, follow signs for downtown Lowell, exit at Thorndike Street, and continue to Market Street to reach the Lowell National Historical Park Visitor Center.

Overview

Lowell National Historical Park is a historical park located in Lowell, Massachusetts. Established in 1978 a few years after Lowell Heritage State Park, it is operated by the National Park Service and comprises a group of different sites in and around the city of Lowell related to the era of textile manufacturing in the city during the Industrial Revolution.

Among the notable features of the park are:

• Boott Cotton Mill and Museum
• The Francis Gate
• Pawtucket Dam and Gatehouse
• Suffolk Mill Turbine and Powerhouse
• Kirk Street Agents House
• Mill Girls and Immigrants Boardinghouse
• The Lowell Canal System
• Swamp Locks, Lower Locks, Guard Locks
• Merrimack River and Northern Canal Walkway
• The Worthen House
• National Streetcar Museum and the associated trolley service, which runs through the park
• Boarding House Park, which hosts the Lowell Folk Festival and the Lowell Summer Music Series.

The park includes a visitor center, as well as many restored and unrestored sites from the 19th century. The visitor center provides a free self-guided tour of the history of Lowell, including display exhibits such as the patent model of a loom by local inventor S. Thomas.

A footpath along the Merrimack Canal from the visitor center is lined with plaques describing the importance of various existing and former sites along the canal. The Boott Mills along the Merrimack River, on the Eastern Canal, is the most fully restored manufacturing site in the district, and one of the oldest. The Boott Mill provides a walk-through museum with living recreations of the textile manufacturing process in the 19th century. The walking tour includes a detour to a memorial to local author Jack Kerouac, who described the mid-20th century declined state of Lowell in several of his books. A walkway along the river leads to several additional unrestored mill sites, providing views of restored and unrestored canal raceways once used by the mills. Additionally, the park includes the Patrick J Mogan Cultural Center, which focuses on the lives of Lowell's many generations of immigrants. Other exhibits include a working streetcar line, canal boat tours exploring some of the city's gatehouses and locks, and the River Transformed / Suffolk Mill Turbine Exhibit, which shows how water power, the Francis Turbine, ran Lowell's textile factories.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lowell National Historical Park", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0