City Hall Historic District

Lowell's City Hall Historic District covers about 27 acres at the center of the mill city and holds 71 buildings. Most were built during the city's early and most important years, from the 1820s through the 1890s. Mill-related housing, boarding houses and agents' residences sit alongside commercial blocks, churches, schools and civic buildings that depended on the mills. Notable buildings include the 1893 Richardsonian Romanesque City Hall, with its 180-foot tower, and the matching Memorial Hall. Others are Old City Hall, designed by Kirk Boott in 1830, St. Anne's Episcopal Church of 1824-25, the Whistler House of 1823 and the 1848 Merrimack Canal Gate House. The district also includes some modern and altered buildings that detract from its character. The nomination values the area as a nearly complete community that reflects the planning, experimentation and way of life of one of the most important industrial cities in nineteenth-century America.