Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

Lowell, Massachusetts

48 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Lowell City. It lies in ZIP code area 01851. It stands on River Meadow Brook. The Survey maps it on the Lowell quadrangle. 109,945 people lived here at the http count. It stands 102 feet above sea level.

Research this city

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Lowell within Middlesex County

Population over time

4 figures

Lowell grew from 106,519 to 113,994 between 2010 and 2021. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

Year	People	Change
2010	106,519
2014	109,945	+3,426 (+3%)
2020	115,554	+5,609 (+5%)
2021	113,994	-1,560 (-1%)

Then and now

1886 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 102 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Lowell, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Lowell, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

48 sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

In the county-history sources

160,056 words on this township

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880 names this settlement in its chapter on Lowell City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

It appears that immediately after ilr. Lowell's return he had at once gone to work to construct a loom ; but he found its construction no easy task. Without patterns, or even drawings, so far as we know, each part had to be planned and tried, altered and rearranged, until tlie whole assumed the shape of a machine. We are told that " many little matters were to be overcome or adjusted before it would work perfectly." Mr. Appleton says : " Mr. Lowell said to me that he did not wish me to see it until it was complete, of whicli he would give me notice. At length the time arrived. He invited me to go out with him and see the loom operate. I well recollect the state of admiration and satisfaction with which we sat by the hour watching the beautiful movement of this new and wonderful machine, destined, as it evidently was, to change the character of all textile industry. This was in the autumn of 1814."

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

The great obstacle to tlie use of the power-loom, at that time, proved to be dressing the yarn ; it required a man at each loom to dress the warp as it unrolled from the beam. This rendered it necessary to stop the loom while the man was doing it. This difficulty was removed by the invention of an ingenious mode of dressing the warp before it was placed in the loom. Mr. Lowell procured from England a drawing of Horrocks' dressing-frame, and Mr. Moody, whose services he had secured, made an improvement which more than doubled its efficiency, - a very ingenious machine called a warper, that wound the threads from the bobbins on the beam. After this there was no farther difficulty in running a power-loom.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

Samuel Batchelder, in his work on cotton manufacture, relates the following anecdote: "ilr. Moody also stated to me another incident respecting the construction and completion of the dressingframe. At first they had used wooden rollers where the threads of the warp were submitted to the action of the size ; but being constantly wet, the wood swelled and warj^ed, so that the rolls would not fit accurately. They then tried covering the rollers -nith metal, by casting a coat of pewter on the outside ; but after various methods of casting, sometimes in sand, and sometimes in a mould made of iron, they were still found to be imperfect. He at length thought of making a mould of soapstone in which to cast them. Meeting his brother

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Lowell City - it names this place 235 more 235 times.

Photographs

8 photographs, 1941

Taken for the Office of War Information and the Farm Security Administration, who photographed the country between 1935 and 1944. Works of United States government photographers, with no known restriction on use. Each opens its catalogue record.

Children skating. Lowell, Massachusetts
Delano, Jack, 1941. Library of Congress

One of the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts
Delano, Jack, 1941. Library of Congress

A street in Lowell, Massachusetts
Delano, Jack, 1941. Library of Congress

Commuters who have just gotten off the train waiting for the bus to go home. Lowell, Massachusetts
Delano, Jack, 1941. Library of Congress

Fires near this place

134 since 2001

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 134 fires within 5 miles of Lowell between 2001 and 2020, burning about 72 acres in total. 3 started naturally. 30 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	37
Debris and open burning	30
Arson/incendiarism	30
Recreation and ceremony	19
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Smoking	4
Power generation/transmission/distribution	3
Natural	3
Railroad operations and maintenance	2
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Other causes	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
6 September 2002	Smoking	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
26 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 September 2002	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
13 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	New Hampshire Division of Forest and Lands	not named
9 August 2002	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
5 August 2002	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
4 August 2002	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
18 August 2002	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 568 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 568 specimens collected within 10 miles of Lowell between 1898 and 1975: 371 Plantae, 130 Animalia, 34 Fungi, 29 Protozoa, 3 Chromista, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. C. Mathieson, A. F. Newton, A. F. Newton, M. K. Thayer and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Exosporium pusillum P.Karst.	1898	King C. A.	Stony Brook
Antennaria howellii subsp. neodioica (Greene) R.J.Bayer	1899	Williams, E.F.
Antennaria neglecta Greene	1899	not recorded
Aristida dichotoma Michx.	1899	E. F. Williams
Arthrosporium compositum Ellis	1899	Rorer	East Billerica
Asarum canadense L.	1899	E. F. Williams
Bidens cernua L.	1899	E. F. Williams
Dichanthelium oligosanthes subsp. scribnerianum (Nash) Freckmann & Lelong	1899	E. F. Williams
Elatine americana (Pursh) Arn.	1899	not recorded
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, R.	Stony Brook
Betula nigra L.	1900	not recorded
Boletus frostii J.L.Russell	1900	A. W. Flint

All 568 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 22 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 22 workings within 5 miles of Lowell: 11 past producers, 7 producers, 4 plants. 11 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Granite, Graphite. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Dracut Deposit	Cobalt, Nickel	Past Producer	1876, 1939
Dracut Ni Mine/Nickel Mine Hill	Nickel, Gold, Silver, Copper	Past Producer
Avaco Corp--Lowell, Ma.	Graphite	Plant
Fletcher Westford Quarry	Granite	Producer
H E Fletcher Co	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Stackpole Fibers Co--Lowell, Ma.	Graphite	Plant
Brox Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Chelmsford Mill	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Plant
Dracut Plant	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Essex Bituminous Concrete Products	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms near this place

16 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Lowell in 16 storm reports between 1995 and 2023: 6 thunderstorm wind, 4 flood, 3 lightning, 2 hail. The reports record 2 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
September 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Lowell	2 hurt	no account filed
June 2002	Lightning	Lowell	$25,000	no account filed
May 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Lowell	$20,000	no account filed
May 2004	Lightning	Lowell	$15,000	no account filed
May 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Lowell	$1,000	At 942 PM EST, a tree was reported down on Pleasant Street in Lowell.
May 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	South Lowell	$1,000	At 943 PM EST, a tree was reported down on Pike Street in Tewksbury.
September 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Lowell	$500	In Lowell, wires were down on Lowell St.
June 2023	Flood	Lowell	$500	Flooding caused a small mudslide on Route 110, blocking the road.
June 2008	Lightning	Lowell	$500	Lightning struck a home on Marlborough Street, resulting in a power surge that blew several light switches off the wall.
July 2023	Flash Flood	Lowell	-	In Lowell, Douglas Rd was flooded to 3 feet.
August 2023	Flood	South Lowell	-	In Tewksbury, Chapman Rd was flooded at Jefferson Rd.
September 2020	Flood	Lowell	-	In Lowell, a section of Raven Road had two feet of street flooding, with the road blocked.
July 2013	Flood	Lowell	-	Moore Street in Lowell was closed due to flooding.
August 2004	Hail	Lowell	-	no account filed
May 1998	Hail	Lowell	-	no account filed
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Lowell	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Middlesex County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Ayres City	0.6 miles	48
Bleachery	0.8 miles	48
Highlands	1.1 miles	48
Belvidere	1.5 miles	48
Oaklands	1.6 miles	48
Middlesex Village	1.6 miles	48
Centralville	1.6 miles	48
Westlands	1.8 miles	41

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on Lowell	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q49162	The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611832. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.