Wannalancit Street Historic District

Wannalancit Street Historic District is a hillside residential neighborhood in Lowell, Massachusetts, just south of the Merrimack River and east of the Pawtucket Canal. It holds 21 contributing buildings and structures, mostly two- to two-and-a-half-story wood-frame houses built between about 1851 and 1936, along with carriage houses and garages. The street was laid out around 1850 on land long held by the Bowers family, during a period when Lowell's mills drew rapid population growth and created demand for middle-class housing away from the mills. Merchants, business owners, engineers and physicians built here. The houses show a range of styles, from a modest Greek Revival and Gothic Revival dwelling to Italianate, Second Empire, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival homes. The standout is the round granite Jonathan Bowers House, known as the Round House, with its fishscale mansard roof. Architect Frederick W. Stickney designed the Oliver E. Cushing House. The district remained a residential area through the mid-twentieth century.