Major Bibliographical References Atlas of the City of Lowell, Massachusetts. Springfield, MA: L.J. Richards &Co., 1896. City Atlas of Lowell, Massachusetts. Philadelphia: G.M. Hopkins, 1879. City Directories, Lowell, MA. Coburn, Frederick W. History of Lowell and Its People. NY: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1920. Hill, Frank P., comp. and ed. Lowell Illustrated: A Chronological Record of the Events and Historical Sketches of the Large Manufacturing Corporations. Lowell, 1884. Illustrated History of Lowell and Vicinity. Lowell: Courier-Citizen Co., 1897.
Previous documentation on file (NPS): X preliminary determination of individual listing(36 CFR67) has been requested HPCA #10803 MA previously listed in the National Register previously determined eligible by the National Register designated a National Historic Landmark recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey # recorded by Historic American Engineering Record # 10. Geographical Data Acreage of property less than one acre UTM References A 19 310380 Zone Easting 14 7/23|27 0 Northing x See continuation sheet Primary location of additional data: X State historic preservation office Other State agency Federal agency Local government University Other Specity repository: MHC B D Zone Easting Northing See continuation sheet Verbal Boundary Description The boundary of the nominated property is shown on theaccompanying detail of the City of Lowell assessor's map.
The lot measures 79' x 61.5' See continuation sheet Boundary Justification The boundary includes the entire city lot that has historically been associated with the property. See continuation sheet 11. Form Prepared By name/title Kathleen Kelly Broomer, Consultant, with Marcia M. Cini and Betsy Friedberg, organization NR Director, Mass. Historical Commission date February 1989 street &number 80 Boyston Street _telephone 617 727 8470 city or town Boston state Massachusetts zip code 02116 IPS Form 10-000- (8-66) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number - Page 1 A major shift in Lowell's economic base occurred with the establishment of cotton manufacturing companies by Boston merchant investors.
This shift began in 1822 with the incorporation of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, the first of ten major companies that were to dominate Lowell manufacturing through the turn of the 20th century. The nine other mills were Hamilton (1825), Appleton (1828), Lowell (1828), Middlesex (1830), Suffolk (1830), Tremont (1830), Lawrence (1831), Boott (1835), and Massachusetts (1835). The revolutionary character of these mills was based on Waltham precedent, in which the manufacture of cotton cloth was carried out from start to finish. The Lowell companies' directors brought together for the first time some of the period's most advanced ideas in the areas of power generation, industrial and transportation technology, production control, capital tormation, sclentit1 research, and soclal organization.
Rapid industrial expansior prompted a sharp increase in population, and in just under a decade Lowell grew from a town (incorporated March 1826) into a city (incorporated April 1, 1836). The city continued its expansion until ca. 1857, when a financial panic resulted in a general slowdown in business. Population declined through the Civil War years, during which time Lowell mills were idle due to the belief of their combined directors that the mills could not be run at a profit. The cessation of mill operations during the war was the turning point tor a marked change in the socio-economic character of mill operatives and, by extension, the general Lowell population. Trained mill girls and the corporation-run boarding house system were replaced after the war by unskilled immigrant labor and the need for family tenements.
By the end of the 1870s industrial complexes lined the Pawtucket Canal, creating a concentrated manufacturing zone at the heart of the city. Much of the area along the canal in the vicinity of Fletcher, Dutton, and Middlesex Streets as well as scattered locations along the Concord River were built up with two to four-story mills, many constructed of stone and powered by steam. While mill complexes continued to expand with additions or new buildings through the 1880s, few, if any corporation boarding houses were constructed. The growth of Lowell's business district paralleled the city's industrial development, with major expansion in the 1850s and again in the 1880s. During the first half of the 19th century Merrimack Street was the spine of the downtown commercial area, which also took in Middle and Central Street (Merrimack-Middle Streets Historic District, NR 11979).
The area contains a significant group of two- to five- story commercial blocks, largely brick, built primarily in the 1880s and 1890s. Many of these buildings are Late Victorian Approvel No. 10240018 UPS Form 10-000e (8-06) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number. 8 Page - commercial hybrids, exhibiting elements of the Romanesque Revival, The Queen Anne in articular was introduced in Lowell residential construction ca constrected in tre ast deciles or ene T9r Canel plti ing, of the The commercial district remains in the grid of the original mill company area, having expanded gradually along major thoroughfares. One such thoroughfare, Middlesex Street, was established as a suburban radial to western sections of the city by the mid-19th century.
A major transportation artery into downtown, Middlesex Street was the location of a railroad depot at Fletcher Street for 5 18ss) and Masho lines to Boston (beginning 1835) and Nashua, New Hampshire (beginning 1838) as well as a route for the street railroad in the 1860s and the electric streetcar in the 1890s. Prominently positioned immediately north of Middlesex Street between Gorham and Fletcher Streets were the juxtaposed mill complexes of the aforementioned Hamilton Manufacturing Co. and Appleton Co. The complexes occupied the area between the Pawtucket Canal and Hamilton Canal (ca. 1822-1824), extending south to Jackson Street with Appleton Co. boarding houses (ca. 1832-1860) ranged along Middlesex Street below Jackson. Although both corporations built major structures on Jackson Street after the Civil War--Hamilton a long storehouse and attached counting house (ca.
1868) and Appleton a new mill (1873)--construction of new corporate boarding houses had ceased. Instead, beginning ca. 1889 the Appleton Co. either sold its boarding house holdings on the north side of Middlesex Street to outside owners, or redeveloped the properties by constructing new mixed-use buildings. The corporation retained ownership of some of the resulting commercial blocks as late as the 1920s. New development along Middlesex Street in the 1880s and 1890s was typical of the physical transformation of the city's center. mill housing on the north side of Middlesex Street and modest wood-frame commercial buildings on the south side of the street were replaced by three and four-story brick mixed-use blocks. These blocks contained retail space on the ground floor and apartments for rent on the upper floors.
Older downtown neighborhoods such as Middlesex Street had become densely developed working-class areas, and the construction of the new blocks addressed the need for a new type of housing for mill operatives. Extant brick blocks constructed on the sites of earlier Appleton boarding houses on the north side of Middlesex Street include the Marston Building at 155-159 Middlesex (1889), the Spaulding Building at 189 Middlesex (ca. 1890), the Elliot Building at 193 Middlesex OMB Approvel No. 1024-0018 PS Form 10-000-e 8-06 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number - 8 Page 3 (1890), and Appleton Chambers at 207 Middlesex (ca. 1910). On the side of the street, the only building with known mill associations is a school for children of Hamilton and Appleton mill employees at 150 Middlesex Street (1829).
This building was soldb he corporations in 1862 and ceased to a history of mili ownershi The Howe Building at 208 Middlesex and the adjacent Warren Fox Building at 190-196 Middlesex are two of the best preserved examples of the new commercial construction on the street in the last decades of the 19th century. The Howe Building was built on the south side of Middlesex Street in 1883 by John F. and Henry C. Howe, brothers whose family retained ownership of the building until ca. 1906. The Howe brothers, with their other brothers Charles E. and Frank W., had a wholesale lumber and shingle business on Dutton Street. The Howes were natives of Barrington, New Hampshire who settled in Lowell ca. 1845. Their business as contractors and lumber dealers lasted forty-five years, and their work focused largely on mill construction.
The Howes built and altered mills in Lowell, Lawrence, Holyoke, and Chicopee, as well as Dover, New Hampshire. active in commercial construction, and built the block at 11 East the family firm was also Merrimack Street (listed in the Merrimack-Middle Streets Historic District, NR, 1979) and the 1882 Queen Anne facade addition to the Hamilton Schoolhouse at 150 Middlesex Street. Early commercial tenants of the Howe Building included the offices of George L. Huntoon, who operated a livery stable and riding depot, Thomas C. Sawyer, a carriage manufacturer and dealer, and unarles r. Keyes, operator of a hack, livery, boarding, and sale stable. The Howe Building provided a central location for the offices of these transportation-related businesses, convenient to their stables or factories as well as the Middlesex Street depot a few blocks to the west.
Another early commercial tenant was Noel Traversy, proprietor of the Middlesex Cash Store, a wholesale and retail grocery business. The identities of the building's early residential tenants are unk nown, but they presumably held textile-related jobs, given the building's proximity to the Hamilton and Appleton mills and the majority (nearly fifty percent) of the city's working population then involved in textile manufacturing. The 1917 city directory shows 20 residents in the Howe Building, many of them in textile or other industry-related jobs. The Howe Building is an excellent example of Lowell's late 19th century commercial architecture. It is unclear whether the Howe brothers were responsible for the building's design as well as its construction. Few attributions of buildings to specific architects ORMe Approwel Mo.
1001-0018 NPS Form 10-000 8-80 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number _ Page - Reao are ir ing tiey ein dam an camae i ul agre. Middlesex--suggests that the firm architectural development in the third quarter of the 19th century. ground floor retail and residential above, and its load-bearing construction. commercial bulldings on Midalesex street ca. 1890. These brick locks commonly included cast-iron storefronts and decorative detailing achieved either by the use of granite or brownstone or by the manipulation of the brick wall surface. Architecturally, the Howe Building dominates Middlesex Street with its distinctive Queen Anne stepped gable and sunflower motifs in the dormer window surround.
The building incorporates some elements of the Romanesque Revival as well, namely the corbelled pilaster strips and the prominent round-arch opening in the central wall dormer. practice of combining elements of various contemporary styles into a single design was widespread in Lowell commercial construction in the last decades of the 19th century. Mill closings in the 1920s and 1930s adversely affected Lowell's economic vitality. On Middlesex Street, Hamilton sold its property between 1924 and 1936, and the Appleton Co., which suspended operations in the 1920s, owned its complex until 1936. Some of the factory buildings are extant. A population decline in Lowell beginning in the early 1920s accelerated with the Depression. directories indicate high vacancy rates in retail and residential space.
Occupied by Normandin's furniture in 1925, retail space ir the Howe Building was vacant from 1930 to 1935. Commercial tenants from 1940 to 1960 included a racket store, two furniture stores, and a shoe store. Occupancy of the residential units, which declinec after the Depression, revived somewhat in the 1940s and 1950s, but declined again in the 1960s. Complete and partial demolition of commercial blocks has occurred on Middlesex Street since the city's earliest mill closings. buildings in the vicinity of the Howe Building were demolished or irreversibly altered, including 163-167 Middlesex (demolished ca. 1920-1936), 169 Middlesex (demol1shed ca. 1924-1936), 218-220 Middlesex (upper story removed 1935), 230-240 Middlesex (upper story removed 1945), and 182-186 Middlesex (demol 1shed ca. 1976).
Vacant lots and unsympathetic 20th-century construction detract from the late 19th century/early 20th century streetscape. The certified rehabilitation of the architecturally prominent Howe Building is contributing to the revitalization of the area. OMB Approvel No. 10240018 Res Fom 100000 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 9 Page 1 9. Major Bibliographical References (cont.) Lowe! National Historical Park and Preservation District Cultural Resources Inventory: Report. National Park Service, 1979. Lom ; Past, Present, and Prospective. Lowel1 : Citizen Newspaper Masachusetts Historical Commission. Lowell Reconnaissance Survey Report, 1980. OMAG Approvel Na. 10210018 HOWETELDG. SCALE ["= SO' 220 PosInay pafaruns 18 8881 12 210 790 128 "Si 16: 6900 9622 2720 5123 55. 2750 PEARL ST.
=:*==1* 22 2614 102.17 6+ 2254 LEIZy 1228 46 32. $161 Erar 007 1736 709.5626 40.5 Z:S2 +239 56.0 1330 2038 65:25 SSL 102. 49:28 0201 127.5 1858 102. 60 g 7586 "968 "428' srs 40.5 9290 61.5.42.h 2327 5150 102 HOWE BUILDING 208 MIDDLESEX STREET LOWELL, MASS. SOUTH ST. 1980 CTYOF.LOWELL ASSESSORS MAP SCALE: 89.
|"=50' 5z NORTH Sc MIDDLESEX 1S UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES EVALUATION/RETURN SHEET REQUESTED ACTION: NOMINATION PROPERTY Howe Building NAME: MULTIPLE NAME: STATE & COUNTY: MASSACHUSETTS, Middlesex DATE RECEIVED: 8/31/89 DATE OF 16TH DAY: 9/28/89 DATE OF PENDING LIST: 9/12/89 DATE OF 45TH DAY: 10/15/89 DATE OF WEEKLY LIST: REFERENCE NUMBER: 89001608 NOMINATOR: STATE REASONS FOR REVIEW: OPHERT NPDTL PROBIEM: PERDAPE NPROSM UAPPROED PROGRAM UNAPPROVED: REQUEST: N SAMPLE: N SLR DRAFT: N NATIONAL: N N N COMMENT WAIVER: N ACCEPT RETURN REJECT 10/2/8DATE ABSTRACT/SUMMARY COMMENTS: - nixed use Bldg tupe associtted with Lowell''s industrial / conmercial peak + decline.
RECOMERRITRIA Acceptatd DISCIPLINE@rchstectunal History 10/12/89 DOCUMENTATION see attached conments y/see attached SIR /d CLASSIFICATION count _resource type STATE/FEDERAL AGENCY CERTIFICATION FUNCTION historic current DESCRIPTION architectural classification materials descriptive text SIGNIFICANCE Period Areas of Significance--Check and justify below Specific dates Builder/Architect statement of Significance (in one paragraph) summary paragraph completeness clarity applicable criteria justification of areas checked relating significance to the resource relationship of integrity to significance justification of exception other BIBLIOGRAPHY GEOGRAPHICAL DATA acreage _verbal boundary description UTMS _boundary justification ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION/PRESENTATION sketch maps _USGS maps photographs presentation OTHER COMMENTS Questions concerning this nomination may be directed to Phone Signed Date 208 Middusex Street (Howe Buildine) Lowell, Massachusetts Photographer: Kim Withers Brengle Taken Norember 1987 Negative on file at Northfields Preservation Associates 10 Barr Street Salem.
Massachusetts 01970 viw from widdusex street facing sotheast photograph "115 Howe Building, 208 Muddlesex St, and Warren Fox Building, (right) 190-196 Middlesex St Loncu, Massachucetts Photographer: Kim Withers Brengle Taken November 1987 Negatire on file at Northfields Preserration Associates 33 Walter st. Salem, Massachusetts 01970 View of near eleratione facing northwest Photograph = 205 Warren Fox Building, 190-196 Muddlesex St and Howe Buldiug,(right) 208 Muddlesex St, i Lowell, Massachusetts Photographer: Kim Withers Brengle Taken Norembe 1987 Negatie an file at Northfulds Preservation Assocates 33 Walter St.
Salem, MA 01970 Vleiw from Middleses st, facing southwest showing Howe Bldg in coutext Photograph *305 Howe Buildinp (208 middlesex Street, far kFt) Lowell, Massachusetts Photographer: Kim Withers Brengle Taken November 1987 Negatire an file at Northhelds Preservation Assuciates 33 Walter St Salem, Massachwsetts 01970 reew from junction of Middlesex and Pead Streets facing east-showinp Howe Bld Photograph +4065 COMPLETE FURNISHERS esousa FOR CAMATER APPLIANCE S RAMALHO'S IEND GYM RAMALHO 169-207 Middlesex St, north o Howe Bldg (208 midduksex) owell, massachesetts Photographer: Kem Withers Brengle Taken Norember 1987 Negative on file at Northfelds Preservation Associates 33 Walter St. Salem, Massachusetts 01970 reew of north side of Middlesex st.
facing west Photograph #5 6 5 * COMMISSIOTA 1 Cornon talit o Kel) August 23, 1989 Carol Shull National Register of Historic Places Department of the Interior National Park Service P.O. Box 37127 Washington, DC 20013-7127 AUG 3 1 1989 NATIONAL REGISTER Dear Ms. Shull: Enclosed you will find the following nomination forms: Howe Building, 208 Middlesex Street, Lowell, (Middlesex County), Massachusetts; Warren Fox Building, 190-196 Middlesex Street, Lowell, (Middlesex County), Massachusetts. There hase been no owner objections for the above mentioned properties. The nominations have been voted eligible by the State Review Board and have been signed by the State Historic Preservation Officer. Owners were notified of pending State Review Board consideration 30-75 days before the meeting and were afforded the opportunity to comment. Comments received to date are attached to the nomination form.
sincerely, thne 's Fit Anne E. Tait Acting National Register Director Massachusetts Historical Commission Enclosure: Massachusetts Historical Commission, Valerie A. Talmage, Executive Director, State Historic Preservation Officer 80 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116 (617) 727-8470 Office of the Secretary of State, Michael J. Connolly, Secretary
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