{"nrhp_refnum":"94000693","name":"Lyman School for Boys","other_names":["Massachusetts State Reform School","See Also:Fisher,Nathan,Hou"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Jct. of Oak and South Sts.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Westborough","county":"Worcester County","state":"MA","lat":42.290027500000065,"lon":-71.62987975964543,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1994-07-25","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Education","Social History"],"significance_levels":["national","state","local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A district of about 200 acres on Powder Hill in Westborough, Worcester County, Massachusetts, containing 31 contributing buildings plus sites and structures of the former Massachusetts State Reform School, later called the Lyman School for Boys. The campus opened in 1886 and includes earlier farmhouses and buildings from the 1880s to the 1930s.","why_significant":"The nomination presents the campus as the first in the Massachusetts state system to use the dispersed cottage plan, with small 'Family Houses' replacing a large central institution. Its Queen Anne, Craftsman and Colonial Revival buildings illustrate late nineteenth and early twentieth century reform school design. The school itself traces to the 1848 state reform school, described as an early state effort to rehabilitate boys.","narrative":"Powder Hill in Westborough holds the former Lyman School for Boys, a state reform school campus first developed in 1886. Spread across roughly 200 acres of hilltop, slopes, fields and woodland, it was the first campus in the Massachusetts system laid out on the cottage plan. Small brick dormitories, staff housing, a hospital, a school and farm buildings replaced the idea of one large central structure, with the aim of giving the boys a more homelike setting. Surviving buildings include Queen Anne cottages from 1886 to 1903, a 1909 Arts and Crafts dormitory, Colonial Revival dormitories of the early 1930s, and several older farmhouses adapted for school use, two of them individually listed in 1980. Since the school closed in the early 1970s, demolition, neglect and new construction have reduced the campus, and the original Theodore Lyman Hall is gone. The district is listed because it still conveys the form and character of the school as it developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"George Clough (Hillside Cottage and Theodore Lyman Hall); Stephen Earle (Boulder Cottage); Preston & Kahlmeyer (Worcester-Wachusett Cottage); William Gibbons Preston (Old School); Cutting & Holman (1875 main building enlargement)","architectural_style":"Early Republic - Federal; Late Victorian - Queen Anne; 19th/20th Century Revivals - Colonial Revival; 19th/20th Century American - Craftsman","criteria":[],"status_note":"The school closed in the early 1970s. The upper campus holds a micro electronics center and wildlife offices, and the lower campus is used by agencies, with some buildings rehabilitated. The central campus is described as largely unused and deteriorating, and some buildings are vacant.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:04.684184-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/98/7931/63793198/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/94000693.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/94000693/aae5245dea-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/94000693/aae5245dea-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":null,"credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lyman-hall-old.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Unknown author</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lyman-hall-old.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63793198","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_School_for_Boys","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6708083"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/worcester-county/lyman-school-for-boys-94000693/"}