5 RI Properties Listed on National Register of Historic Places
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Five new Rhode Island landmarks have received federal recognition for their contributions to the state’s history.
Jeffrey Emidy, Acting Executive Director of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission, announced that the National Park Service has added the Otis Angell Gristmill, Woonsocket Senior High and Junior High Schools, Naushon Company Plant, Rochambeau Worsted Company Mill, and Lafayette Worsted Company Administrative Headquarters Historic District to the National Register of Historic Places.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“These listings are representative of the variety of properties that are included in the National Register of Historic Places in Rhode Island: rural and urban, vernacular and architect-designed, industrial and civic. All are important to the history or their communities. This recognition will raise awareness of their historical importance which should contribute to their future preservation,” said Emidy.
The Locations
The Otis Angell Gristmill was constructed in the mid-19th century as a gristmill, presumably for property owner Otis N. Angell (1809-1872). It was adapted to various industrial uses, starting with textile waste bleaching in the late 1860s.
From the 1930s to 2012, the building was owned by the Geneva Sportsmen’s Club and used as a clubhouse.
Today the building serves as a recreation center at North Providence’s Governor Notte Park.
The Angell Gristmill is significant to the history of the industry as a rare surviving representative of small-scale, rural textile manufacturing and processing.
The former Woonsocket Senior High and Junior High Schools stands on a large lot at 357 Park Place in the residential neighborhood of Villa Nova.
The building was built in four phases between 1915 and 1952. The earliest section was constructed in 1915 as the Woonsocket High School.
The building was expanded ten years later. In 1927, a Junior High School, with an auditorium, a gymnasium, and a boiler house, was constructed to connect with the High School building.
In 1951–1952, the original Senior High School gym was demolished and a new Gymnasium Annex was erected in its place on the north elevation of the original 1915 building.
The school complex is significant to the history of education for its association with the early 20th-century development of Woonsocket’s public-school system and as the school where all Woonsocket children received secondary education for 95 years.
It was one of the first schools to integrate technical trades and domestic sciences instruction. Also, the building is a significant example of civic school architecture, designed in the Classical Revival style by Woonsocket architect Walter F. Fontaine.
The Lafayette Worsted Company Administrative Headquarters Historic District on Hamlet Street represents Woonsocket’s “Second Industrial Revolution,” a transformative period of massive Franco-Belgian investment in worsted spinning in the early 20th century.
In Cumberland, the Naushon Company Plant (1902-04) on Meeting Street tells the story of six decades of textile manufacture transitioning from cotton goods to cotton-silk blends and, later, to camel hair, mohair, worsteds, and synthetics.
The Rochambeau Worsted Company Mill (ca. 1923) on King Street in Providence is significant for its association with the French worsted industry in Rhode Island.
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