Recent Stories

Twin lions guard the entrance to the Spruces Mobile Home Park. They serve as illuminated beacons to guide residents heading home on dark and stormy nights. Some people say the concrete beasts originally came from the Mount Hope Farm. This is not…

It was in 1894 that F.E. Rice, a native of Charlemont and a resident of Florida, came down from the mountain and formed a partnership with E.A. McMillian and began a shoebox manufacturing facility on Washington Avenue to supply the booming local…

Twenty year old Charles H. Cutting formed a partnership with J.W. Silsby resulting in a men’s wholesale-retail clothing store which would last for 89 years. The C.H. Cutting Company opened in a modest building on State Street in 1870. Within a few…

The mid to late 1890’s was a banner time for the North Adams School System. Between 1896 and 1897, three new schools were built, Houghton, Brayton and Johnson Schools. Houghton stood tall in the east end of the city on land purchased from the…

John J. Fachini was the master of many Big Band shows during the age of the Depression. He promoted dances in the upstairs ballroom of the Wellington Hotel under the name of Johnny’s Dance Palace. On one such night 2,000 people showed up to see Rudy…

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Historic North Adams

Historic North Adams is a free website and mobile app that puts North Adams’ history at your fingertips. Explore interesting people, places, and events in North Adams’ history, and take historical walking tours of the city. With a growing list of interpretive stories, each point on the interactive GPS-enabled map includes historical information about the location, along with historic images from archival collections and historical publications.

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