View the Fitchburg HandbookFitchburg, Massachusetts
A Short History of Fitchburg
From Nipmuc homeland on the Nashua River to a 19th-century industrial powerhouse known as the “Paper City”, and from mill town to a diverse, reinventing community anchored by a state university and a thriving art museum.
Before the City
The land along the Nashua River was long home to the Nipmuc people. English colonists began farming the rugged, hilly area, then called “Turkey Hills”, in the 1730s as part of the town of Lunenburg. In 1764 the settlement was set off as its own town, named for John Fitch, a prominent resident who helped secure its incorporation.
The Mill City Rises (1800s)
Fitchburg’s future was written by the Nashua River, whose falls powered a growing cluster of mills. Thomas French built the city’s first paper mill in 1804, and over the century Fitchburg became a major manufacturer of paper, machinery, tools, textiles, and firearms. The arrival of the Fitchburg Railroad in 1845, championed by industrialist Alvah Crocker, connected the city to Boston and the nation, sealing its industrial rise.
Railroads, Granite & the Hoosac Tunnel
Fitchburg’s reach extended west through the Hoosac Tunnel, completed in 1875, which was bored using the Burleigh Rock Drill, designed and built in Fitchburg. Grand Victorian buildings rose during this golden age, from City Hall to the stately homes of Highland Avenue, many still standing today.
A City of Immigrants
The booming mills drew wave after wave of newcomers: Irish, then Finnish, French-Canadian, Italian, and many others. Fitchburg became one of the most important centers of Finnish-American culture in the country, with its own newspaper, Raivaaja, and gathering places like Saima Park. The city was also an active center of the abolitionist movement, with residents supporting the Underground Railroad.
Decline & Reinvention
Like other New England mill cities, Fitchburg saw its paper and textile industries move south in the mid-20th century, and its population dipped from a 1950 peak. The city has spent the decades since reinventing itself, leaning on anchors like Fitchburg State University (founded in 1894 as a state normal school), the Fitchburg Art Museum, and Coggshall Park, and welcoming a large and growing Latino community that is reshaping the city once again.
Sources: City of Fitchburg; Encyclopaedia Britannica; U.S. Census Bureau; Fitchburg Historical Society.