Whitney, F. A., Carriage Company Complex Historic District

Along the Monoosnock River in Leominster, Massachusetts, a twelve-acre mill complex preserves the home of the F. A. Whitney Carriage Company. The district holds frame and brick buildings dating from 1872 to the 1920s, including a Second Empire office with a cupola, wood mills with mansard-roofed headhouses, and four-story brick mills, one with bold Romanesque Revival detailing facing Water Street. The river supplied power through a dam, a raceway and an early turbine installation. The firm began in 1858 and grew into the largest baby carriage producer in the United States, building 200,000 carriages in 1918. It also developed patented features such as a reversible handle and a fiber substitute for reeds, and later added doll carriages and juvenile furniture. The company closed in 1952. The complex is recognized for its role in local industry and as a well-kept record of changing mill design, and it is now being converted to housing.