Fall River

The City of Fall River is an industrial community on the banks of the Taunton River in Bristol County with a long and fascinating history.  The first settler was Benjamin Church, a hero of King Philip’s war who built a sawmill in 1690.  The city’s geography determined its destiny; as historians have pointed out, the significant fact about Fall River is that it had water power and port facilities together, making it both a transfer point for passenger and freight traffic to New York and the site of intense industrial development. 

Fall River’s industrial history began in 1811 when Colonel Joseph Durfee opened the Globe Manufactory.  By 1830 the city had seven textile mills a steamboat to Providence and Newport and its own newspaper.  The city boasted an international market and 130,000 people when it s prosperity peaked during the First World War.  This was closely knit industrial complex in which raw materials came into the port of Fall River to be processed into manufactured goods and then shipped out again from port. 

When textile manufacturing began moving south in the 1920’s the city’s decline began accelerating during a devastating fire, which destroyed the central business district.  By 1930 the city declared bankruptcy and having learned its lesson, the modern city maintained a highly diversified industrial profile with chemical operations, electrical and food products along with the garment and textile industries.