Blackstone Manufacturing Company Historic District
Also known as: New City; High Rocks
Why it's listed
Blackstone Village, in the southern part of the town of Blackstone, Massachusetts, grew around a textile company founded on the Blackstone River. This district covers the company's nineteenth-century holdings: tenement blocks, single-family houses, a church, a store with a meeting hall, and the open site of its mills. Buildings date from 1809, and most were finished by 1866. The company built at least forty of them, with much of the work from the 1840s to the 1860s done by local craftsmen Charles Aldrich and Allen Chase. Greek Revival is the predominant style, with modest detail such as boxed cornices and corner posts. Tenements were divided horizontally and vertically among many families. The 1861 brick Overseers Block and the 1866 brick blocks on Butler Street show later company housing. Remnants of headraces and tailraces and a stone mill building from 1844 mark the mill site, whose buildings were demolished in 1904. The district records how one company shaped a whole village.
Significance in brief: The district preserves the company-built worker housing, church, store and mill sites of a nineteenth-century textile enterprise on the Blackstone River. The company's tenement blocks, institutional buildings and mill remnants document how a mill village was planned and developed, and the location was driven by river power and topography rather than by local need.
Machine-generated summary. This summary was generated by a language model from the official nomination document and has not been reviewed line by line by an editor. It may contain errors. Check the source document before relying on any detail. Source: nomination document (PDF) · National Archives catalog entry. NRHP reference 95001038, listed August 25, 1995. Summary generated October 2026 (model claude-sonnet-5-5, prompt v1.0-2026-10-29, confidence medium).
Key facts
| Address | Roughly, area surrounding Butler, Canal, Church, County, Ives, Main, Mendon, Old Mendon, and School Sts., Blackstone |
|---|---|
| County | Worcester County |
| Listed | August 25, 1995 |
| Reference number | 95001038 |
| Resource type | District |
| Architect / builder | Blackstone Manufacturing Company; local craftsmen Charles Aldrich and Allen Chase; Kelly and Pierce (brickwork) |
| Architectural style | Greek Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, Colonial Revival |
| Areas of significance | Architecture, Historic - Non-Aboriginal, Community Planning and Development, Industry, Transportation |
| Level of significance | Local |
| Status (as stated in the nomination) | Mill buildings were demolished in 1904 and the mill site is largely open. Many houses have synthetic siding. Current uses include dwellings and a restaurant. |
| Acreage | 30 |
| Coordinates | 42.01712, -71.53942 (NPS GIS) |
What listing means for this property
This is a historic district. Buildings within its boundary are either contributing (they add to the district's significance) or non-contributing. Owners of contributing income-producing buildings can claim the 20% federal rehabilitation tax credit; homeowners should look at state credits. National Register districts impose no design review by themselves; a local historic district ordinance, if one exists, does (the difference explained).
General information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change; confirm with your State Historic Preservation Office or a qualified adviser.
Sources and further reading
- National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places database (snapshot May 2026), reference 95001038.
- Nomination form (PDF, National Archives) — catalog entry
- Wikipedia article (used for cross-checking only; text not reproduced here)
- Wikidata Q4923415
- This listing as JSON
Last updated October 2026. Found an error? See the editorial policy for how to report it.