The Old Neighborhood

The Old Neighborhood. Valley Falls. , A Cultural Context , The Valley Falls mill was once once of several industrial centers in the community. The mill here ran for over a hundred years until 1834, and [unreadable] Valley Falls the political center of Cumberland. The distinctive neighborhood revolved around the mill complex, the 1894 Town Hall, churches, stores, a fire station, and a post office., Many ethnic groups settled in Valley Falls in these early years including people of Irish, English, French Canadian, Polish, and Portuguese descent. Some historic company housing stands in the neighborhood today, a testament to the critical role these people played in the cultural and industrial history of Valley Falls. The mills where many worked to helped bring them together as a community., The Railroad Link , This photograph, taken looking downstream from the Broad Street Bridge, shows the Providence and Worcester railroad bridge when the Valley Falls Mills were still intact. The convergence of two railroads at Valley Falls , the Providence and Worcester (1847) and the Rhode Island and Massachusetts (1877) , stimulated the growth of local industry, commerce, and population., This historic map identifies the properties owned by the Valley Falls Company in 1870. The mill at today's park site (red) took advantage of Blackstone River water power by 1820, and later used the Providence and Worcester Railroad to transport raw materials and finished products., Valley Falls 1990's Locus Map , Valley Falls today is a densely-populated urban area in the southern part of Cumberland. Good waterpower resources and railroad connections made it an important textile manufacturing center in the 1800s and early 1900s.