{"nrhp_refnum":"82004476","name":"Wachusett Shirt Company","other_names":["Waterways Apartments"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"97-100 Water St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Leominster","county":"Worcester County","state":"MA","lat":42.527550235000035,"lon":-71.75577505299998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1982-07-08","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A complex of five brick and wood factory buildings on about three acres straddling Water Street in Leominster, Massachusetts, built between 1887 and 1910 for the Wachusett Shirt Company beside Monoosnock Brook.","why_significant":"The complex is tied to shirt making, a major Leominster industry, and housed one of the city's leading industrial and commercial enterprises. The five buildings are also good local examples of late nineteenth century industrial construction, sharing materials such as local brick, granite and clapboard.","narrative":"Five connected factory buildings on Water Street in Leominster, Massachusetts, once made shirts for the Wachusett Shirt Company and now serve as apartments. Built between 1887 and 1910 beside Monoosnock Brook, which supplied water power, the group includes a four-story brick factory, a laundry, a wooden annex, a corner building and a Georgian-influenced brick office. Local Osborne brick, granite and clapboard give the complex a unified look, with decorative brick cornices and low-arched window heads repeated across several buildings. Shirt making began in Leominster in 1880, and Wachusett grew under partners George Gane and F.A. Whitney into the town's largest producer, employing about 600 people in 1915. Paul Weber built the first factory, and Whitney may have designed it. The company declined after Whitney retired in 1913 and had disappeared by the mid-1950s. The buildings were later rehabilitated for housing, and their exteriors remain largely intact.","period_of_significance":"1887-1910","architect_builder":"Paul Weber/F.A. Whitney","architectural_style":null,"criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Recently renovated into apartments (Waterways Apartments) and in excellent condition; exteriors nearly intact, with aluminum sash and rooftop solar panels added.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:57.489497-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/30/7974/63797430/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/82004476.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/82004476/b5a804ffea-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/82004476/b5a804ffea-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Marcbela","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wachusett_Shirt_Co.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Marcbela</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wachusett_Shirt_Co.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63797430","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wachusett_Shirt_Company","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7958790"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/worcester-county/wachusett-shirt-company-82004476/"}