Lower Highlands Historic District

Lower Highlands is a neighborhood of modest and middle-class houses in Fall River, Massachusetts, built between about 1810 and 1930 near the early village center. It holds the city's largest surviving concentration of Federal and Greek Revival buildings, with Gothic Revival, Italianate, Second Empire, Stick Style and Colonial Revival examples alongside them. A fire in July 1843 destroyed twenty acres of the village, and merchants and manufacturers quickly rebuilt, producing a decade of construction that still largely stands. The district became the home of the city's middle and upper middle class, while wealthier mill owners built higher up in the Highlands. From the 1860s onward, new mills nearby led to simple one-to-six-family tenements for workers. Notable buildings include the Cataract Engine Company #3, the James D. Hathaway House, the Church of the Ascension, the Truesdale Clinic and the Women's Union. Most buildings remain in good condition.