{"nrhp_refnum":"95001040","name":"East Blackstone Village Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly, area along Elm St. at the jct. with Summer St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Blackstone","county":"Worcester County","state":"MA","lat":42.04520193850007,"lon":-71.51748332050337,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1995-09-06","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Historic - Non-Aboriginal","Architecture","Community Planning and Development"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A historic district of about 33 acres along Elm and Summer Streets in East Blackstone, Blackstone, Massachusetts, on the early Providence–Worcester route. It holds houses, a stone store, a brick schoolhouse, a stone arch bridge and mill sites dating from ca. 1760 to 1938.","why_significant":"The district preserves the layout and buildings of a self-sufficient nineteenth-century mill and farm village, with small house lots near the road, farmland behind and the Mill River water course. Its houses, former store and school, and the remains of mills, dams and races show how the community grew around the Kelly family and its industries. Archaeological potential is also high.","narrative":"East Blackstone Village is a small historic district in Blackstone, Massachusetts, strung along Elm Street and around its junction with Summer Street. It grew along the early road linking Providence and Worcester. The district covers about 33 acres and includes fourteen houses, two barns, a former store, a former schoolhouse, a stone arch bridge and several mill sites. The oldest building is the Seth Kelly Sr. House, built about 1760. Other landmarks include the three-story Stone Store of about 1800, the brick schoolhouse of about 1830 and a series of Greek Revival cottages, some built by the Ray brothers. Italianate and Queen Anne houses show later growth. Ruins of grist, saw and cotton mills, a forge site from 1716 and dams along the Mill River recall the industries that supported the village. The Kelly family shaped much of this development. Together, the buildings and landscape show how a nineteenth-century self-sufficient village was arranged and how it worked.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Ray Brothers, Benjamin and Joseph (built four Greek Revival cottages)","architectural_style":"Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, Bungalow, Cape","criteria":[],"status_note":"Most contributing buildings are houses still in residential use; the former schoolhouse is now a residence. The Methodist church and train depot are gone, and the mills survive only as remnants.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:05.167201-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/62/7971/63797162/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/95001040.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/95001040/32b6590b69-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/95001040/32b6590b69-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"John Phelan","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elm_Street,_East_Blackstone_MA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">John Phelan</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elm_Street,_East_Blackstone_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63797162","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Blackstone_Village_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5327880"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/worcester-county/east-blackstone-village-historic-district-95001040/"}