Orange Center Historic District

Orange Center is the commercial and civic heart of Orange, in the northeastern corner of Franklin County, Massachusetts. The twelve-acre district gathers around the crossing of North, South, East and West Main Streets and takes in part of Millers River. It holds 39 contributing resources, including the Town Hall, churches, banks, commercial blocks, a railroad freight house and the remains of sewing machine and turbine factories. Growth began in the late 1830s with the first Town Hall and accelerated after a railroad station opened in 1846. Furniture makers, turbine builders and especially the Gold Medal and later New Home Sewing Machine Company brought jobs and capital, and by 1890 New Home employed more than 600 people. The buildings trace changing tastes, from Greek Revival blocks of the 1840s to Victorian Gothic banks and Romanesque buildings of the 1890s, along with brick industrial buildings with elaborate ornament. A fire in 1891 led to rebuilding around the main intersection.