Ayer station

The Ayer Main Street Historic District encompasses most of the historic central business district of Ayer, Massachusetts. It extends along Main Street between Park and Columbia Streets, and was mostly developed between 1872 and 1898 as a hub of railroad and roadway-based economic activity. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

Ayer ( AIR) is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. Originally part of Groton, it was incorporated February 14, 1871, and became a major commercial railroad junction. The town was home to Camp Stevens, a training camp for Massachusetts volunteers during the American Civil War. Later, Fort Devens was established by the federal government to train New England soldiers for World War I. Fort Devens is a major influence on the area, although it is considerably smaller than when it was first closed in the mid-1990s. The town's population was 8,479 at the 2020 census.

Ayer is a census-designated place (CDP) and the primary settlement in the town of Ayer in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population of the CDP was 2,986 at the 2020 census, out of 8,479 in the entire town.

The Pleasant Street School is a historic school building on Pleasant Street in Ayer, Massachusetts. It is a 2+1⁄2-story Colonial Revival building, with a hip roof pierced by wide gabled dormers with bands of small windows. It was constructed in 1893 to a design by Boston architect Charles E. Parks and is one of the oldest school buildings in the town. It was enlarged in 1906, doubling it in size. It served as a public school until 1984.The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

Community Memorial Hospital is a historic hospital building at 15 Winthrop Avenue in Ayer, Massachusetts. The brick and stone Colonial Revival building was constructed in 1929, and expanded in the 1950s. It was designed by the Fitchburg architectural firm of Haynes & Mason, and was the first hospital building dedicated to serving the town of Ayer. The organization that operated the hospital was created by the merger of the Ayer Hospital Association, founded in 1912, and the Ayer Private Hospital, founded 1924. This organization operated the facility until 1957, when it was merged with the Groton Community Hospital. This group continued to operate the facility until 1971, when it moved to new premises and vacated this building.The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. The building is currently (2018) being operated as Nashoba Valley Assisted Living.

Ayer Shirley Regional High School is a high school located in Ayer, Massachusetts. The school colors are maroon and white, and the mascot is the Panther. The student body contains about 350 students in 9th-12th grade.

The Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School (usually referred to as the Parker Charter School by the public, or simply Parker by students) is a public charter school in Devens, Massachusetts, United States that serves students in grades 7 to 12. It was established in 1995 under the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993, and serves about 400 students from 40 surrounding towns in north central Massachusetts, including Ayer, Shirley, Littleton, Leominster, Lunenburg, and Worcester. As a member of the Coalition of Essential Schools, a leading organization for education reform, Parker is known for its nontraditional educational philosophy. The school takes its name from Francis Wayland Parker, a 19th-century pioneer of the progressive school movement.

Nashoba Valley Medical Center is a 40 bed community hospital located in Ayer, Massachusetts. In 1994, Deaconess Hospital of Boston purchased what was then called Nashoba Community Hospital. The hospital was purchased by Essent Healthcare in 2001, and then subsequently sold to Steward Health Care System in 2011.

The Lovell General Hospital East is a former hospital at Fort Devens. It was named after the first Surgeon General of the United States Army, Joseph Lovell. After its closure, it was redeveloped into the United States Army Intelligence School.

The Fort Devens Historic District is a historic district roughly bounded by El Caney St., Antietam St., Sherman Ave., MacArthur Ave. and Buena Vista Street in Devens, Massachusetts, encompassing territory in both Ayer and Harvard. The district is in a portion of the former Fort Devens and includes a large number of historically and architecturally significant buildings. The buildings that are deemed of most significant historic importance are those that were built in the period 1929-39. This building phase was begun after the United States Army decided to upgrade temporary facilities dating from World War I, to provide more permanent facilities at the base. This resulted in the construction of a significant number of Georgian Revival buildings in a rough U shape around a central parade ground. These buildings included dormitory facilities for soldiers, administrative office space, and warehouse facilities. This area is also significant as the site from 1933 to 1937 of an encampment of the Civilian Conservation Corps, and for its association with Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers, without whose efforts the base might have been closed instead of being upgraded.The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993. Its main boundaries on the north, west, and south, are Antietam and El Caney Streets. The eastern boundary is mainly Jackson Street, although there is an extension further eastward to Auman Avenue, where there are rows of single-family housing. One of the most visually dominant elements of the district are Rogers Field, the former parade ground, and the grouping of former barracks buildings on its north side.

The Squannacook River is a 16.4-mile-long (26.4 km) river in northern Massachusetts. It is a tributary of the Nashua River and part of the Merrimack River watershed flowing to the Atlantic Ocean. The river rises within West Townsend, Massachusetts, at the juncture of Walker Brook, Locke Brook, and Willard Brook. Walker and Locke Brooks rise within Greenville, New Ipswich, and Mason, New Hampshire, while Willard Brook rises in Ashby, Massachusetts. The Squannacook flows east and southeast through Townsend and West Groton, Massachusetts, and joins the Nashua River in wetlands just east of Woodsville. The river is dammed three times in Townsend and twice in West Groton. Its watershed covers 73 square miles (190 km2), of which 18% is permanently protected. It has been designated an Outstanding Resource Water. There has been a conversion of one of the former mills on the Groton portion of the river. The former E.H. Sampson Leather Board Mill became a senior citizen/ nursing home. Riverside is located next to West Groton Square.

Devens is a regional enterprise zone and census-designated place in the towns of Ayer and Shirley (in Middlesex County) and Harvard (in Worcester County) in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is the successor to Fort Devens, a military post that operated from 1917 to 1996. The population was 1,697 at the 2020 census, down from 1,840 in 2010.