An excerpt from History of Dracut by Silas R. Coburn (Courier Citizen, 1922), retrieved from archive.org. The first paragraph below is a quote from a chapter by Mary E. Wight in The Lowell Book (George H. Ellis, 1899). The postcard of the Central Bridge is from 1908.—PM . . .…
Read More »
Snow and icy rain are coming tomorrow. On Friday everyone will want to get out, and there’s a great option for Friday night. If you attended the JFK Memorial Concert in Durgin Hall last November, you know how well these musicians play. On top of an impressive program to be…
Read More »
February is Black History Month. Gray Fitzsimons in 2011 created a downtown walking tour of sites associated with the anti-slavery history in Lowell. Gray, a former Historian at Lowell National Historical Park, offers extensive commentary on the twelve highlighted sites. He got an assist on this project from Martha Mayo,…
Read More »
The Lowell Parks & Conservation Trust in partnership with Mass. Audubon’s Drumlin Farm is offering a wildlife tracking experience for adventurers of all ages on Saturday, Feb. 22, from 9 to 10.30 am, at the historic Hawk Valley Farm at 520 Varnum Ave. in Pawtucketville. Learn how to identify tracks…
Read More »
At UMass Lowell. Photo by Tony Sampas.
Read More »
After posting my Week in Review column earlier today, a reader named Joe left the following comment: About a decade ago Ed Davis wanted to bring the shot spotter gunshot detection system to Lowell. I forget the reason but it never materialized. This week I watched councilors Belanger and Rourke…
Read More »
On the Lowell Memorial Auditorium website, I found this fascinating nugget in Ed Harley’s history of the building—PM “After its dedication in 1922, the Lowell Memorial Auditorium hosted a variety of conventions, civic and religious affairs, and programs of purely recreational or educational values. Liberty Hall became the home of…
Read More »
Fifty years ago on February 9, 1964 the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Their performance is a part of music history. Two years after the Sullivan performance, the Beatles came to Massachusetts. It was 1966 and I was fifteen years old…and I loved the Beatles (as I still…
Read More »
My brother Richard recently came across a 1930s promotional flier for an event in Lowell that I had never heard about: Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd appeared in the Moses Greeley Parker Lecture Series on Dec. 13, 1935. His topic was the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition, whose duration was from…
Read More »