Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
US Post Office--Whitinsville Main
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1987. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
one of 500 National Register listings in Worcester County · listed in 1987 · category: Building · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Worcester County.
National Register reference number.86003433- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Fires near this property
64 since 2003
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 64 fires within 5 miles of US Post Office--Whitinsville Main between
2003 and 2020, burning about 49 acres in total. None started naturally. 3 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
Smoking
15
Debris and open burning
14
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
13
Recreation and ceremony
11
Railroad operations and maintenance
4
Arson/incendiarism
3
Equipment and vehicle use
2
Misuse of fire by a minor
1
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 501 specimens
collected within 10 miles of US Post Office--Whitinsville Main between 1844 and
1974: 258 Plantae, 188 Animalia, 41 Fungi, 9 Protozoa, 3 Unrecorded, 2 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. R. Hodgdon; F. L. Steele, A. R. Hodgdon; F. L. Steele 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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
29 workings within 5 miles of US Post Office--Whitinsville Main: 24 past producers, 4 producers, 1 unknown.
4 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Northbridge, the town this property stands in, in 9 storm reports between 1997 and 2023: 4 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 1 heavy rain, 1 lightning.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. 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.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
6,237 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
Located on Church Street, the eastern approach to the Village Center, the Whitinsville Post Office borders Memorial Park, an attractive wel1-planted Green and occupies a prominent site at the Gateway to Whitinsville. The Post Office also borders upon the Whitinsville Historic District, a heritage area that encompasses many buildings of historic
Statement of significance
BUILDER/ARCHITECTLouis A. Simon, Sup. Arch't. Blauner Construction Co. Although less than fifty years old, The Whitinsville Post Office possesses integrity of location, design, setting, materials and workmanship as well as significant association with the efforts of the Federal Government to releive unemployment and stimulate the economy through the rapid construction of governmental structures during the depression era. Additionally, it is locally significant as visual and tangible evidence of the Federal Government's activist role and a symbolic representation of its strengths and ideals. The Whitinsville Post Office thus meets the National Register Criteria A and C. Whitinsville, and its post office, is a latter-day manifestation of the power and vision of one family.
Originally part of the Plantation of Medham, Northbride and Uxbridge opted for separate town charters in 1727. Northbridge, of which Whitinsville is the main village and commercial district, became a separate town in 1772. The distances that the citizens had to travel to the established town churches was the main reason that new towns, and churches developed during these times. In 1790, Paul Whitin arrived at one of the hamlets, called South North- bridge, and founded an iron works on the banks of the Mumford River. Formerly a farming community, the area grew under the economic benefits created by Mr. Whitin who, upon controlling the water rights by 1810, established the first cotton mill in the area. The small hamlet by this time had become "Whitin's Village", or Whitinsville.
With the continued development of water power on the river and the associated ponds, Whitin, now the Whitin Company, expanded the economic diversity of the community by manufacturing the mill and loom machinery required by the developing mill industry in New England.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 86003433, 30 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
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.