What to See in Lowell - Top Sights and Attractions

Auditorium in Lowell, Massachusetts. The Lowell Memorial Auditorium is an indoor auditorium in downtown Lowell, Massachusetts, in the United States. It is dedicated to local veterans of war.

The 2,800-seat venue was built in 1922 by the architectural firm of Blackall, Clapp & Whittemore. The exterior walls bear the names of famous generals and battles, with monuments to newer wars on the auditorium's small lawn.

Common events include concerts, comedy acts, large plays, and boxing. Attached to the auditorium is the smaller theatre of the Merrimack Repertory Theatre.

In February 2014, an American flag from the Civil War was discovered in the basement. The flag had been carried by Solon Perkins, a lieutenant in the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry Regiment, who was killed in the Battle of Clinton, Louisiana, on June 3, 1863. It was given to the Lowell Memorial Auditorium in 1929 by Mary Sawyer Knapp, and now hangs there in the Hall of Flags.^[7]

Church building in Lowell, Massachusetts. Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church is a historic Greek Orthodox Church building at 62 Lewis Street in Lowell, Massachusetts. Holy Trinity is one of the many Eastern Orthodox churches in Lowell, along with St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church, Transfiguration of Our Savior Greek Orthodox Church, and St. George Greek Orthodox Church. The church is under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and is locally administered by the Metropolis of Boston. The church is located the Downtown Lowell neighborhood known as The Acre. It was built in 1906 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. Holy Trinity was the first church built for a Greek Orthodox congregation in the United States. It is known for its golden dome, mosaics, iconography, and rich history.

Archbishop Iakovos of America, who led the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America from 1959 through 1996, was ordained as a priest at Holy Trinity on June 16, 1940.^[9]

Completed in 1796, the Pawtucket Canal was originally built as a transportation canal to circumvent the Pawtucket Falls of the Merrimack River in East Chelmsford, Massachusetts. In the early 1820s it became a major component of the Lowell power canal system. with the founding of the textile industry at what became Lowell.

The Pawtucket Falls are a mile long series of falls and rapids over which the Merrimack River drops 32 feet. The falls hampered the shipment of inland goods, mostly lumber, to the mouth of the Merrimack and Newburyport, Massachusetts. Newburyport was then one of the largest shipbuilding centers in New England, and a steady supply of wood from New Hampshire was critical to its industry.

The original canal was built by wealthy Boston merchants who formed a limited liability corporation called the Proprietors of Locks and Canals, one of the first of its kind in the United States. However, within a decade of its construction the Middlesex Canal was completed, connecting the Merrimack directly with Boston, Massachusetts. Bringing goods directly to Boston was more advantageous for merchants, and the Pawtucket Canal fell out of favor for inland transport.

The investors in the Boston Manufacturing Company having successfully built upon Francis Cabot Lowell and Paul Moody's work in building a successfully integrated cotton mill at Waltham, Massachusetts on the Charles River were looking for a site that offered more waterpower and the Pawtucket Falls offered what they needed. In 1821 they bought the Proprietors of Locks and Canals and with it the water rights of the Merrimack River upstream from the Pawtucket Falls. The Pawtucket Canal was deepened to become a power canal, and the first of 5.6 miles of canals in the soon to be named City of Lowell, Massachusetts. The first canal built off the Pawtucket Canal was the Merrimack Canal, which powered the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, thus starting the Lowell experiment, and the first planned industrial city in the United States.

The canal is operated today by Boott Hydro, LLC.^[10]

Church in Lowell, Massachusetts. The Pawtucket Congregational Church is a historic church at 15 Mammoth Road in Lowell, Massachusetts. It sits across Massachusetts Route 113 from the Merrimack River at Pawtucket Falls on the site at which the Pennacook sachem Passaconaway once lived.

The church was gathered in 1797 by those who did not wish to travel to the center of Dracut for worship. Pawtucketville was part of Dracut when the church was founded. The current church building was erected in 1898, and exhibits Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival styling; its tower houses a bell cast by the Revere foundry in 1822. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.

Pawtucket Congregational Church is an open and affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ.^[12]

Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts. Hildreth Cemetery is a small cemetery located on Hildreth Street at Sutherland and By Streets in the Centralville neighborhood of Lowell, Massachusetts. The cemetery's history dates back to the mid-18th century, when it was designated as a burial ground by Major Ephraim Hildreth before his death in 1740. Though located within the Lowell city limits, it is actually administered by the nearby town of Dracut because the cemetery was built when Centralville was still a part of Dracut.

In 1913, the City of Lowell attempted to sell the cemetery after the Town of Dracut neglected to pay a tax on a new sidewalk on Hildreth Street; this would have resulted in the forced relocation of many of the remains at the cemetery. After an injunction in Suffolk County court to prevent the sale, the town continues to maintain the cemetery. The nearby private cemetery containing the graves of General Benjamin Butler and his wife, Sarah Hildreth, was not affected.^[13]

The Pow-Wow Oak is an historic tree located in the Belvidere neighborhood of Lowell, Massachusetts. This 300-year-old tree is believed to have served as a gathering place for pow wows held by the Native American Wamesit tribe. The Wamesit Indians congregated in this area for thousands of years, and the land on which this tree grew on was held as sacred to them as was the tree itself. It is also said that Revolutionary War soldiers such as Deacon Thomas Clark, Captain John Trull, and General Joseph Varnum, as well as others from this New England hamlet, traveled past the Pow-Wow Oak on their way to defend Lexington and Concord on Patriots Day, April 19, 1775. This was the very beginning of the American Revolution, which started in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

In 1909, Middlesex County decided to pave Clark Road, then a dirt and gravel road that was referred to as "The Old Bridal Path". Albert E. O'Heir, an immigrant from Canada, who lived in the old Hunt Home at 241 Clark Road, did not want to see the tree, which stood in the middle of the road, cut down. In order that the tree might stand, O'Heir donated for one cent to the City of Lowell, 9,463 square feet of his land on Clark Road.

In May 1931, the Molly Varnum Chapter of the Massachusetts Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) erected a sign next to the tree to commemorate the ancient oak, the Wamesit Indians, and the local militia who passed by it while traveling through that Lowell neighborhood (then still part of the town of Tewksbury) during the Revolutionary War.

In September, 2009, a local, grass-roots, neighborhood, environmental organization called the Pow-Wow Oak Protectors (a registered, non-profit, public-charity), founded by George Nicholas Koumantzelis, was formed to ensure the continued safety of the tree, as it had been encroached upon for decades, doing damage to its health. In May 2011, local groups, including a current chapter of the Old Concord DAR and the Pow-Wow Oak Protectors, raised funds to have the tree's commemorative sign refurbished. The Pow-Wow Oak has also been recognized and preserved by the American Forests Historic Trees Program, and by the City of Lowell via the Pow Wow Oak Tree Preservation Covenant, which was recorded on March 12, 2012, at the Middlesex (North District) Registry of Deeds, Book 25799, Page 105.

In May 2011, a documentary movie called "The Last Pow-Wow Oak" about the Pow-Wow Oak and the crusade to save it by the Pow-Wow Oak Protectors, as well as other, local, concerned groups, was produced and released by local artist, musician, film maker, and documentarian, Andrew Szava-Kovats. In March 2014, an accompanying book (with the same title) to the movie, including more detailed legal documents and historical data about the whole Pow-Wow Oak saga, was written and produced by Andrew Szava-Kovats.

On May 21, 2013, during a very strong wind storm, a large upper branch (not the lower horizontal "arm" that pointed west) of the Pow-Wow Oak collapsed onto nearby Clark Road. The following day, the decision was made by the City Manager's Office of the City of Lowell to, questionably, cut down the entire tree to the ground because extensive interior decay in the mid to upper sections of the tree had more than partially compromised the tree and the safety of pedestrians and nearby motorists.

On Thursday, November 12, 2015, a dedication ceremony was held at the Peter W. Reilly Elementary School on Douglas Road in Lowell, MA, commemorating the installation of a permanent display of a huge round piece of the trunk of the Pow-Wow Oak.^[16]

Park in Lowell, Massachusetts. Shedd Park is a 50-acre public park in Lowell, Massachusetts. It is located off Rogers Street and flanked by Boylston Street and Knapp Avenue in the Belvidere section of the city. It includes multiple baseball fields, tennis/basketball courts, a pavilion, and a water park. In combination with Fort Hill and the Lowell Cemetery, Shedd Park is one of the largest urban green spaces in the Greater Lowell area.

The park was made possible in part through the contribution of $100,000 from the estate of Freeman B. Shedd. His wife, Amy, died in 1924 and his daughter had died in 1921 without having any children. This money allowed the city to develop the park which he had donated in 1910. The Shedd Park Field House was built in 1927 and on October 29, 2016 it was dedicated and renamed the John D. Lord Pavilion.^[19]