If you look straight ahead, you’ll spot a rugged, fortress-like stone building with rows of old windows and a tall brick smokestack towering over it-just look for the big “W.O.W.” sign on that smokestack to know you’re in the right place.
Alright, step right up! You’re standing before one of Fall River’s true industrial legends: the Metacomet Mill, with its sturdy fieldstone walls and its next-door neighbor, the American Printing Company Mill No. 7. This isn’t just any mill complex-it’s where some of the city’s earliest and greatest stories of industry, innovation, and, let’s be honest, a little bit of wild engineering, come crashing together, just like the waters of the Quequechan River used to, right underneath your feet.
Picture yourself here in 1847. Colonel Richard Borden-a man with a name so bold you’d expect him to have a cape-builds this very mill. But unlike most American mills, the plans came all the way from Bolton, England, thanks to the teamwork of Major Durfee and William Davol. When the local folks first saw it, they called the Metacomet a “model mill”-not because it was runway ready, but because it was cutting-edge for its time! The secret? Cast iron girders and beams, a first in the United States. Before that, mills creaked and sagged on wooden supports, like an old bedframe on laundry day. But here, the iron held strong, letting the floors stay true and the machines whirring along without skipping a beat.
All this action was powered by, you guessed it, the mighty Quequechan River, falling just beneath the floorboards, its misty roar mixing with the din of spinning cotton. The Metacomet Mill was built over native stone, with daring and determination, and originally soared five and a half stories high with its gable roof, reaching toward the smoky sky. Over the years, the mill grew larger, and when the river’s fury wasn’t enough, a chugging steam engine was added, puffing away like an engine that had just heard a good joke.
Fast-forward to 1906, and the American Printing Company Mill No. 7 rises just upstream, a stout red-brick beauty with a Gothic-style engine house. This was the last big splash from the company that put more people to work than anyone else in town back when print cloth was all the rage. Imagine this place humming around the clock, workers moving under the shadow of those smokestacks, the city’s pulse set by the thumping of mighty looms.
Now, if things feel a little tucked away today, there’s a reason. In the 1960s, the highways came roaring through, with Interstate 195 and the Braga Bridge hemmed in around this pocket of history. Many of the old mills vanished, but these two survived, holding out as reminders of the days when the Quequechan’s falls powered an empire. If you walk to the edge of the parking lot, you might catch the sight-or even the sound-of the river “daylighting,” bubbling out in small pools before vanishing beneath asphalt into darkness again.
These days, the old mills have new lives inside them-small businesses, a fitness center (so even the ghosts here are probably in great shape!), and new dreams in these ancient walls. One smokestack flashes its W.O.W. sign, the other beams out mobile phone signals-talk about going from cotton to connections! Together, these mills are the last sentinels on this stretch of the Quequechan, echoing with 175 years of grit, grit, and a whole lot of cotton dust. Just imagine, as you stand here, the thousands who once bustled through these doors, powering a city and making a bit of history with every shift.
