Merrimack-Middle Streets Historic District

Downtown Lowell's Merrimack Street, together with parts of Middle, Central and Prescott streets, forms a compact commercial district of mostly four- and five-story brick buildings. Dates range from the 1833 Nesmith Building to structures of 1963, though the strongest buildings come from the 1870s and 1880s. Notable examples include the 1884 Hildreth Building, the 1878 Venetian Gothic Wyman Exchange, the Second Empire Masonic Temple of 1871-72, and the 1889 Central Firehouse built for Wamesit Steamer No. 3. Prescott Street adds the Italianate Southwick Block and a neoclassical bank of 1919-20. The district matters because Merrimack Street became the primary commercial thoroughfare of Lowell as it grew from a farming hamlet into a major cotton textile city. Most of its stores date from the years after the Civil War, when the city's population and urban services expanded. A few modern intrusions and altered storefronts are acknowledged, but the area retains a lively mix of Victorian commercial architecture.