Lowell National Historical Park

Lowell National Historical Park preserves the core of a nineteenth-century planned industrial city in Massachusetts. Authorized by Congress in 1978, it takes an unusual approach: the federal government owns few buildings, and preservation relies on other public agencies and private owners. The 134-acre park takes in the 5.6-mile power canal system, part of the downtown business district and three major mill complexes. Its listed properties include the Boott Mill, with its surviving 1835 mills and clock tower, the 1848 Moody Street Feeder Gatehouse, the Kirk Street Agents' House built for mill corporation agents, Old City Hall, and later mill buildings such as the Lowell Manufacturing and Suffolk companies. The nomination holds that Lowell was not the birthplace of American industrialization, but the place where technology, water power, finance, labor and industrial organization came together on an unprecedented scale. Its surviving canals, mills, housing and streetscapes show the economic, technological and social effects of that change, from early success through decline to revival.