Lower Union Street Historic District

Union Street in central Rockland, Massachusetts, is lined with houses built between 1816 and about 1910, forming a district of 36 contributing and 21 non-contributing buildings. Many were homes of shoe manufacturers and other prominent townspeople. Rockland became a shoemaking center in the nineteenth century, with factories once standing at the foot of Union Street and nearby. The Lane family alone built seven houses here, and Jenkins Lane opened a factory at the street's southern end in 1834. The architecture runs from Federalist examples such as the 1816 David Lane House through Greek Revival, Cape Cod, Italianate, Second Empire, Victorian Gothic, Queen Anne and Bungalow designs. The Hotel Thomas, built in 1874 as a wagon express office, is the main commercial building. Although some houses have been resided, the street keeps a consistent, well-preserved character. The district was recognised locally for both its ties to the shoe industry and its concentration of distinguished buildings, and it may also hold archaeological remains of mills.