Pawtucket History

Downtown History
From the mid-seventeenth century to 1862 the Blackstone River served as the political boundary between Massachusetts and Rhode Island. “Pawtucket Village” evolved on either side of Pawtucket Falls, located at the Main Street Bridge. The village on the west bank was part of Providence until 1765, when it was set off as part of a new town, North Providence. In 1874, an eastern portion of North Providence merged with Pawtucket to form the present political boundaries. Pawtucket was incorporated as a city in 1885.

Pawtucket Falls is generally regarded as the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution. It was there in 1793 that the mechanical skill of the Wilkinson family and textile machinery knowledge of Samuel Slater were combined to create Slater Mill, site of the first successful mechanized cotton spinning in the United States. In subsequent years the riverbanks were developed with a substantial number residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings. By 1830 the city’s population was 3,300. Pawtucket’s industrial expansion continued with the construction of the Boston & Providence Railroad and the Providence & Worcester Railroads through the city in the 1840s. The city experienced another burst of industrial prosperity during the Civil War boom that lasted until the Panic of 1873. Pawtucket became an important producer of yarn, thread, and specialty fabrics including calicoes, woven haircloth, worsted braid and cotton wadding, and bootlaces. Other Pawtucket products included textile and mill supplies, metalworking and machine tool building, nuts, bolts and screws, and leather belting.

In the 46 years between the incorporation of the city in 1874 and 1920, downtown Pawtucket assumed much of its density and visual character. During that span the population of the city more than tripled to a total of 64,248. The central business district expanded and the buildings that were erected reflect confidence in continued prosperity. Development crept west away from the Blackstone River to Broad and North Union streets in the 1880s, and by 1900 Broad and Main streets became solidly lined with business and commercial blocks. A large and distinctive commercial district grew up around Main and Pleasant Street and Roosevelt Avenue. Eventually Pawtucket became second only to Providence in Rhode Island in terms of population and industrial importance, and the downtown rivaled its neighbor in abundance and variety of goods.

The general decline of New England’s textile industry after World War I had a severe impact on Pawtucket’s development. The Blackstone Valley’s cotton industry, which began to fall of significantly by 1923, almost completely dissolved during the Great Depression of the 1930s. During the Depression, the city’s population dropped by some 4,300 people between 1930 and 1936. Mayor Thomas P. McCoy averted financial collapse of Pawtucket in the 1930s by improving many city services and taking advantage of the federal recovery programs initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. McCoy utilized those programs for the construction of new building including City Hall Constructed in 1935 on the west bank of the Blackstone River, which looms over the downtown area. Although suburban development began to increase with the rise of the automobile, downtown Pawtucket remained the center of commercial activity.

At the start of World War II, Pawtucket experienced a brief economic boom as its remaining industries retooled to support the war effort, but by the end of the war, the economy again went into recession before stabilizing in the early 1950s. Mid-twentieth-century development within the downtown area also expressed a similar trend. In 1956, the City Planning Commission formed and began the development of a municipal master plan. Five years later the Pawtucket Redevelopment Agency was created to undertake an urban renewal project in the downtown business section. These planning and redevelopment activities were partly triggered by the construction of Interstate 95 in the 1950s and 1960s. Though met with some local opposition, the Pawtucket section of I-95 was constructed through the center of the city and officially opened in 1963. As a result of the new highway, located 1/2 mile east of the downtown, traffic patterns were altered to incorporate a one-way circulator through the downtown area.

Other mid- to late-twentieth-century impacts within the downtown area include the Slater Urban Renewal Area project of 1966, which involved a 57-acre tract stretching northward on both sides of the Blackstone River from I-95 to Exchange Street. The Urban Renewal Project significantly impacted the historic character of the area immediately east of the survey area, and many lots were cleared for new commercial or multifamily residential buildings and parking lots. Since that time the downtown area has suffered from a lack of overall vision, and flagging residential and commercial activity has resulted in inconsistent investment and upkeep of the downtown’s buildings.