This canal was built in the late 1700’s and helped fuel the industrial revolution in the US. Lowell, Massachusetts, is a bustling city not too far from Boston. Across parts of the city is Lowell National Historic Park where you can tour old factories and lodgings and much more as the factory began to replace the farm as the center of working life. The mills were dirty and dangerous and the hours long. But pay was consistent and good - and you could advance with hard work and ingenuity. This section of town, like most of Lowell is a mixture of old, older and new- or at least repurposed buildings. There are restaurants and shops and, yes, still some factories and lots of high tech companies. The structure, Pawtucket Gatehouse, at the top of the photo was the water management control building for the great Northern Canal and provided power for scores of water driven mills and hundreds of machines. It, too, is over 200 years old.
