Lowell Museum

The Lowell Historic Preservation District is a historic district created by the legislation establishing Lowell National Historic Park. The district encompasses an area of more than 500 acres (200 ha), including virtually all of the historically significant resources associated with the industrial history of the city of Lowell, Massachusetts. It includes the industrial mill complexes, worker housing areas, central business district, and civic heart of the city, as well as the water power infrastructure that powered the mills.The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

The F. Bradford Morse Federal Building, formerly the United States Post Office is a historic post office at 50 Kearney Square in Lowell, Massachusetts. The building was designed by George Augustine Daidy and was built in 1930. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. The building was acquired in 1996 by Middlesex Community College, which renovated the facility for $11 million. It was renamed in honor of local Congressman and statesman F. Bradford Morse on December 8, 2006.Today, the building houses the MCC Lowell campus library, the Honors Center, and art studio and classrooms.It is distinct from 1895 Lowell Post Office, which is also listed on the National Register.

The Rex Center was an arena and entertainment center in downtown Lowell, Massachusetts, existing from 1933 to 1960. Entrepreneur and car dealer Charles Dancause created the Rex, which opened in 1933 in a renovated mill building, the old Prescott Division Plant of Mass Cotton Mills. The architect of the conversion was Harry Prescott Graves.Among the entertainments offered at the Rex was dining (the Rex Grille, which also offered floorshows), bars, a dancing ballroom, duckpin bowling (65 lanes), roller skating, pool (30 tables), and Turkish baths. There were five banquet halls; banquets, wedding receptions, and other events were held there. The Rex Center constituted an important part of Lowell social life in the mid 20th century; the Lowell Sun described it as "one of Lowell's landmark spots" and "the sports and dining showplace of Lowell".The Rex Arena in the center seated 1,000 or 2,000 and hosted boxing matches, and also wrestling matches (featuring appearances by Jim Londos, Ed "Strangler" Lewis, The French Angel, Man Mountain Dean, Dropkick Murphy, Bull Curry and many others), particularly after the older Crescent Rink on Hurd Street burned down. Semi-pro basketball games were played there, and the Harlem Globetrotters appeared there.The Rex Center burned down on June 25, 1960. The huge fire raged out of control for several hours, and of the more than 300 firefighters from Lowell and 14 other towns, sixteen were injured. The derelict building was torn down in 1971 and replaced with a parking lot. Wang Laboratories built a training center at the site in 1984, which in 1990 was purchased by Middlesex Community College and is now used as its Lowell campus.

The Bon Marché was a department store in downtown Lowell, Massachusetts, in business from 1878 to 1976.Frederic Mitchell founded a dry goods store in 1878 under the name "This is Mitchell's". His brother Charles Mitchell operated a shoe store. Both stores were on Merrimack Street. In 1887, Frederick and Charles combined their operation, under the name The Bon Marché.Of the building that became the Bon Marché store, the small righthand section was built around 1874 (before Bon Marché existed). The large central section was built in 1887 to house the new Bon Marché Dry Goods store. The addition on the left side (matching the original right side building) was built in 1927.In the manner of the day, wares were sold outside on the street. Customers included the workers of the city's many textile mills. The store was on Merrimack Street in the heart of the commercial district of what was then the prosperous and growing city of Lowell.Even in its early days, Bon Marché billed itself as the largest department store in New England. Their Rock Bottom Basement Store featured an actual rock, a large glacial erratic which the basement was built around. The store was an anchor of Lowell's mercantile downtown. Its fortunes declined with the city as the mills closed. The last day of business was January 10, 1976. The building was taken over by the Jordan Marsh chain, which itself became defunct in 1996; the building now houses the UMass Lowell bookstore and other businesses.

Lowell National Historical Park is a National Historical Park of the United States 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. In 2019, the park was included as Massachusetts' representative in the America the Beautiful Quarters series.

The Boott Mills in Lowell, Massachusetts were a part of an extensive group of cotton mills, built in 1835 alongside a power canal system in this important cotton town. Its incorporators were Abbott Lawrence, Nathan Appleton, and John Amory Lowell, and is named after Kirk Boott, the first Agent of the Proprietors of Locks & Canals in Lowell. Today, the Boott Mills complex is the most complete remainder of antebellum textile mills built in Lowell. The original Mill No. 6 is managed by the National Park Service unit Lowell National Historical Park and houses the Boott Cotton Mills Museum and the Tsongas Industrial History Center for K-12 educational programs.

Completed in 1796, the Pawtucket Canal was originally built as a transportation canal to circumvent the Pawtucket Falls of the Merrimack River in East Chelmsford, Massachusetts. In the early 1820s it became a major component of the Lowell power canal system. with the founding of the textile industry at what became Lowell.The Pawtucket Falls are a mile long series of falls and rapids over which the Merrimack River drops 32 feet. The falls hampered the shipment of inland goods, mostly lumber, to the mouth of the Merrimack and Newburyport, Massachusetts. Newburyport was then one of the largest shipbuilding centers in New England, and a steady supply of wood from New Hampshire was critical to its industry. The original canal was built by wealthy Boston merchants who formed a limited liability corporation called the Proprietors of Locks and Canals, one of the first of its kind in the United States. However, within a decade of its construction the Middlesex Canal was completed, connecting the Merrimack directly with Boston, Massachusetts. Bringing goods directly to Boston was more advantageous for merchants, and the Pawtucket Canal fell out of favor for inland transport. The investors in the Boston Manufacturing Company having successfully built upon Francis Cabot Lowell and Paul Moody's work in building a successfully integrated cotton mill at Waltham, Massachusetts on the Charles River were looking for a site that offered more waterpower and the Pawtucket Falls offered what they needed. In 1821 they bought the Proprietors of Locks and Canals and with it the water rights of the Merrimack River upstream from the Pawtucket Falls. The Pawtucket Canal was deepened to become a power canal, and the first of 5.6 miles of canals in the soon to be named City of Lowell, Massachusetts. The first canal built off the Pawtucket Canal was the Merrimack Canal, which powered the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, thus starting the Lowell experiment, and the first planned industrial city in the United States. The canal is operated today by Boott Hydro, LLC.

The New England Quilt Museum, founded in 1987, is located in downtown Lowell, Massachusetts and is the only institute in the Northeastern United States solely dedicated to the art and craft of quilting. It is the second-oldest quilt museum in the United States. It houses special and permanent exhibits, a library, a museum shop, and classrooms. Collections are strong in 19th century quilts, with a geographic focus on New England.

Lowell Heritage State Park is a public recreation area and historical preserve located in Lowell, Massachusetts, that protects and promotes the city's seminal role in the American Industrial Revolution. The state park was established in 1974 as a precursor to Lowell National Historical Park, which was created in 1978. Aside from the functions the national park also serves, the state park maintains additional sites around the city such as the Sampas Pavilion.

The Musketaquid Mills is a historic mill building at 131 Davidson Street in Lowell, Massachusetts. It is the only mill building remaining on the east side of the Concord River, in the city's Belvidere section. The four story brick building was built in stages, beginning in 1909 with the construction of six bays of three stories. Between 1912 and 1925 it underwent two major expansions to reach its present four stories and fourteen bays. The building was used for textile production until 1980, and was used for storage for a time. It has been rehabilitated, and now houses Lowell's welfare services offices.The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

The National Streetcar Museum is a streetcar museum and heritage railway located in Lowell, Massachusetts. It is owned by the New England Electric Railway Historical Society, which also operates the Seashore Trolley Museum, and is operated as part of the National Park Service's Lowell National Historical Park.

The 1895 Lowell Post Office is an historic post office building at 89 Appleton Street in Lowell, Massachusetts. The imposing two-story granite building was completed in 1895 to a design by W. J. Edbrooke. The building has an H shape, and has a profusion of typical Richardsonian Romanesque features, included rounded arches over windows and a recessed entry. The focal point of the building is its five-story square clock tower, which is topped by a pyramidal roof supported by tripled round arches on each face.The building was used as a post office until 1936, when a new building on Kearney Square (now the F. Bradford Morse Federal Building) was put in service. The building continued to house federal offices until the 1970s, by which time its ownership had been transferred to the city. The city then used it for offices until the 1990s.The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. It now houses a division of the Middlesex County juvenile court system.