View the Saugus HandbookSaugus, Massachusetts
A Short History of Saugus
From Indigenous fishing grounds on the Saugus River to the birthplace of American ironmaking, and from a Lynn village to an independent North Shore town.
Before the Town
For thousands of years before European arrival, the land along the Saugus and Pines rivers was home to the Pawtucket (Naumkeag) people, led at the time of contact by the sachem Montowampate. The town’s name comes from an Algonquian word generally understood to mean “outlet” or “extended,” describing the river and the wider region. When English settlers arrived in the 1620s, the area was part of the larger Lynn territory.
The Saugus Iron Works (1646–c.1670)
In 1646 an ironworks called Hammersmith began operating on the Saugus River, the first integrated ironworks in North America and one of the most technologically advanced in the world. With a blast furnace, forge, and rolling-and-slitting mill powered by waterwheels, it produced more than a ton of iron a day. It was never financially successful and closed around 1670, but it had proven that heavy industry could take root in the New World. Today the reconstructed site is the Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site, run by the National Park Service.
An Independent Town (1815)
For nearly two centuries Saugus was part of Lynn. On February 17, 1815, it was set off and incorporated as a separate town, holding its first town meeting that spring. Through the 19th century Saugus developed as a community of farms, tanneries, and shoe and woolen manufacturing, and later became a streetcar suburb as Boston’s reach extended north.
Roadside Americana
In the 20th century, the stretch of Route 1 through Saugus became one of the most famous commercial strips in New England, a landscape of mid-century roadside Americana, from the giant cactus of the former Hilltop Steak House to the orange-roofed Kowloon and the leaning tower at Prince Pizzeria. The strip remains a defining piece of the town’s identity and economy.
Saugus Today
Modern Saugus is a residential suburb of about 28,600 people, governed by an elected Board of Selectmen, an appointed Town Manager, and a Representative Town Meeting under a charter adopted in 1947. Long shaped by Italian and Irish families, the town has grown more diverse in recent decades. Residents enjoy Breakheart Reservation, the Rumney Marsh, and nearby Lynn Woods, and a town still proud of its place at the start of American industry.
Sources: Town of Saugus; Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site (NPS); Encyclopaedia Britannica; U.S. Census Bureau.