Located at 61 Washington Road, in the Forest Park Heights section of Springfield, is the F. Nichols House, a colonial revival-style residence, built in 1896. From 1905 to 1955, it was the home of Thornton W. Burgess (1874-1965). A conservationist and author, Burgess wrote Old Mother West Wind and many other children’s books.
The house at 6 Oak Street in Worcester was built in 1906-1907. It was the home of Ransom F. Taylor, son of Ransom C. Taylor (d.1910), a wealthy real estate developer who became Worcester’s largest property owner. According to Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts, Vol. II (1907), Ransom Frederick Taylor
was born in Worcester[.] He married Virginia Byrd Chapman, of York, Pennsylvania. He was educated at the Highland Military Academy, Worcester, and Phillips Andover Academy. He has for a number of years been associated with his father in business and has shared the management of his property largely. In recent years he himself has been a large investor in real estate and is accounted as one of the shrewdest and most accurate judges of the values of real estate in the city.
The house was purchased by Becker College in 1955 and is now a dormitory called Merrill Hall, named for civic leader and trustee of the college, Everett E. Merrill.
Built to honor the 9,000 citizens of Worcester who served in the First World War, the Worcester Memorial Auditorium was constructed in 1931-1932 and is located in Lincoln Square. The Classical Revival building was designed by Lucius W. Briggs of Worcester and Frederick C. Hirons of New York. The exterior features Art Deco-inspired bas-relief ornament. Inside are murals by Leon Kroll, installed in 1941. The interior has a large auditorium and a “Little Theatre” which share a single stage that can be opened up to join the rooms together. Recently used as an auxiliary courthouse, the Auditorium has been the subject of many renovation and redevelopment discussions over the years (see pdf), the city eventually plans to sell the building. Continue reading “Worcester Memorial Auditorium (1932)”
The Park Building, at 507 Main Street in downtown Worcester, was built in 1914-1915 by the Park Trust Company, organized in 1915, which merged with the Worcester County Trust Company in 1927. The eleven-story structure was designed by two firms, Cross and Cross and D.H. Burnham & Company, both of New York. The Park Building is the largest of several office blocks that were constructed in downtown Worcester in the early twentieth century.
Erastus and Horatio Bigelow ended their involvement in the management of the Lancaster Mills Company in Clinton (producers of gingham cloth) in 1849. The new manager, Franklin Forbes, oversaw the erection of new buildings, including Mill No. 7 (Carding Mill, also labeled in 1929 as Ring Spinning), which was built between 1857 and 1870. It has a six-story tower added c. 1879-1898. Mill No. 7 is connected to Mill No. 1. The mills closed in 1931. For several decades the buildings were owned by Colonial Press and then were used by other companies. Recently, they have been renovated as condominiums, the Lofts at Lancaster Mills. Continue reading “Lancaster Mills Company, Mill No.7 (1870)”
The brothers, Erastus and Horatio Bigelow, whose carpet company built the mills in Clinton discussed in my last two posts, were also founders of the Lancaster Mills Company, which produced checked gingham textiles. In the early 1840s, Erastus Bigelow had developed a power loom to mechanize the production of cotton checked cloth. In 1844, the Lancaster Mills Company was established and it soon built a complex of mill buildings at the head of the Wachusett Reservoir on a site bounded to the south and west by the Nashua River. The complex is dominated by the massive Mill No. 1 (Weaving Mill), which is only one-story high, but covers a large area. It was originally a single immense room, lighted by skylights. It was built in 1844-1849 and was expanded to the north in 1879-1898, when the current entrance, below a two-story brick tower with a pyramidal roof, was constructed. The image above depicts that later entrance. The building is notable as an early example of a large-scale industrial building designed to house a horizontal manufacturing process. In 1899, it became the first textile mill to be powered entirely by electric generators. The Lancaster Mills Company was the nation’s largest producer of gingham cloth. In later years, the Lancaster Mills buildings became part of the sprawling campus of Colonial Press. In 2011, part of the complex was renovated to become the Lofts at Lancaster Mills. Continue reading “Lancaster Mills Company, Mill No.1 (1844)”
The Bigelow brothers, Erastus and Horatio, had established the Bigelow Carpet Company in 1854. A number of mill buildings were constructed along Union Street in Clinton the 1850s. The company grew rapidly and soon constructed another group of woolen mills along Main Street in 1864-1866. After the death of Erastus Bigelow in 1879, the company continued to expand and soon developed the property on Union Street, constructing a new mill building and rebuilding the earlier structures to create an architecturally unified complex. After the mill closed in 1932, these buildings were used as a warehouse and were partially vacant. In the 1970s, the Nylon Products Company (Nypro) rehabilitated the structures for their own manufacturing use.
The building pictured above was built in 1886. The tower to the rear, on the left side of the picture, is part of another building, which is attached to the 1886 building. It was originally constructed in 1855 and was rebuilt in 1885. Continue reading “Bigelow Carpet Mill (1886)”
