{"nrhp_refnum":"08000794","name":"Wamsutta Mills","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Acushnet Ave., Logan, Wamsutta and N. Front St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"New Bedford","county":"Bristol County","state":"MA","lat":41.650134000000065,"lon":-70.9258229978852,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2008-08-19","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Community Planning and Development","Industry","Invention"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A textile mill complex on about nineteen acres in the Logan-Hicks area of New Bedford, Massachusetts, bounded by Acushnet Avenue and Wamsutta, Logan and North Front Streets. It was built in stages beginning in 1847.","why_significant":"The complex is a well-preserved group of brick and stone mill buildings that grew over roughly 75 years as the Wamsutta company expanded. The company was one of New Bedford's largest and most successful textile employers. It also became known for modernization, market research, direct advertising and control of production from raw cotton to finished sheets.","narrative":"Wamsutta Mills is a nineteen-acre textile complex in New Bedford's Logan-Hicks area, developed from 1847 over about 75 years as the business grew. A fire in 1924 destroyed the earliest four-story Mills Nos. 1, 2 and 3, but a group of two- to four-story brick and stone mills survives, along with picker houses, a weave shed, a cloth and harness room and a mill pond. The buildings are utilitarian, with large regularly spaced windows for daylight, brick corbelling, granite sills and wrought-iron fire escapes with scrolled brackets. Mills Nos. 4, 5 and 6 form a nearly 1,000-foot facade along Acushnet Avenue. The company was among the city's largest employers, with 2,200 operatives by 1891. After 1918 its president spent $2,500,000 on modernization, shifted from steam to electric power, ran market surveys and advertised directly to consumers. Several mill buildings are being converted to apartments.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Other: Utilitarian industrial","criteria":[],"status_note":"Mill Nos. 4 and 5 and the Picker Houses are being converted to loft-style apartments, and the Cloth/Harness Room is subdivided for individual tenants.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:04.237481-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/58/7945/63794558/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/08000794.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/08000794/4d6af10805-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/08000794/4d6af10805-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Marcbela","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wamsutta_Mills_NB.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Marcbela</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wamsutta_Mills_NB.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63794558","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wamsutta_Mills","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7966963"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/bristol-county/wamsutta-mills-08000794/"}