MENUS
Buildings, Businesses, Cemeteries, Churches and Town Departments
Draper Corporation and Draper Family
Group Pictures from decades ago
Hopedale Community - 1841 - 1856
Hopedale History Email Stories - May 15, 2007 to present.
Hopedale Reminiscences A dozen stories written in 1910, by people who, as children, lived in the Hopedale Utopian commune of the 1840s and 1850s.
Hopedale on YouTube - Video and slide shows.
Links to Hopedale related sites
Little Red Shop - history and pictures
Little Red Shop interior - photos of looms, etc.
Little Red Shop renovation - photos from each week of the three month project.
Little Red Shop Museum website
Maps - maps of Hopedale going back to the 1850s.
Memories - individual and family stories
Now and Then - pictures taken a century or so apart
Park, Pond and Sports
Recent Pictures Through 2007 2008 2009
Short Stories and Pictures
War Veterans
Wildflowers of Hopedale
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MISCELLANEOUS STORIES
Hopedale History Chronology
Short Biographies of Prominent Hopedale Citizens A Brief History of Hopedale (From the book, Images of America: Hopedale.)
A History of South Hopedale
Origins of Street and Place Names
Hopedale, 1881
Milford, Hopedale, 1880 - 1930
The Separation from Milford
Hopedale As I Found It (Hopedale in 1910)
Hopedale Inventors
Underground Railroad???
Mill Town or Shop Village?
Spindleville
White City
The Dutcher Family
Gilbert Thompson, National Geographic Society founder and fingerprinting pioneer.
Sleepy Little Town A song about Hopedale.
Recent Deaths (This may be useful to those of you who don't receive the Milford News.)
Aerosmith
Questions about Hopedale history.
Can you make changes to your house if it's in a National Register District? Find the answer here.
HOPEDALE, MASSACHUSETTS
Hopedale,MA
This site is an attempt to relate a little of the history of Hopedale, Massachusetts. The town was settled in 1842 as a Utopian socialist commune and evolved into the home of the Draper Corporation, at one time the world's largest manufacturer of automatic cotton looms. Hopedale has an area of only five square miles, a population of about 6,000 and is located in the Blackstone Valley in south-central Massachusetts.
While the site originally included only Hopedale history, since 2005 some current stories and pictures have been added. Most of them can be seen by going to the Recent Pictures Menu on the right
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To offer comments and suggestions or to just let me know that you've been looking at this site, go to the GUESTBOOK.
If you have additional information, corrections or opinions on any of the material here, e-mail me and I'll add your thoughts to the site.
If you'd like to receive stories of the history of Hopedale by email, twice a month, let me know and I'll add you to the list.
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NEW.
I've had a message here for a couple of months about GeoCities closing and the problems that would likely cause for this site. Now Yahoo/GeoCities has come out with a new announcement saying the closing won't cause any problems. Click here to read it.
Hopedale in July.
Was the motorcycle invented in Hopedale? There's a good chance that it was. Click here for pictures and the story of Sylvester Roper.
The schedule for this summer's band concerts is at the bottom right of this page.
Little Red Schoolhouse Christmas party - c. 1948.
Hopedale History Email Story - End of the Community.
Hopedale High graduation.
Memorial Day.
Red Shop Museum requests for assistance. Schedule of this summer's work party nights at the shop, and a request for liaisons from town organizations.
Group pictures - kids by Mendon Street in the early 50s.
If you'd like to purchase fabrics woven on a Draper loom in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, take a look at Pete and Laurie Eaton's site. (You can see 36 pictures of their products by going to "Gallery" once you're on the homepage.) To get an idea of what they had to do to get an old Draper loom running again, see a bit of the story here.
Slideshow of Draper photos, old and recent, on YouTube.
Celtics in Hopedale - Three news articles.
Wildflowers of Hopedale slideshow on YouTube - or see them here, one at a time.
Red Shop gift shop items are now availble through this site. They include Red Shop Christmas cards, books, t-shirts, DVDs, note cards, Red Shop prints, and more.
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HOPEDALE BUSINESSES
TWM Systems - Customized computers and services
Howes Welding - Site work, shop repair, fabrications
Little White Market - Photos and flyer
AllinOneFunFavors.com - Shower and holiday favors, etc.
CandyUnderCover.com - Candy bars, etc. with personalized wrappers
Appell Engineering - Computer security consulting
David Delaney Entertainment - Disc jockey
Hopedale Summer Band Concerts
Wednesdays 7-9pm
Hopedale Town Park
Raindate on Thursdays
Refreshments available
Sponsored by the Hopedale Cultural Council
June 24 Infractions
July 1 B C and Company
July 8 Blackstone Valley Community Concert Band
July 15 Mahrud Jazz Band
July 22 Fantasy Big Band
July29 8 Misbehaving
Aug 5 The Spellbinders
Aug 12 B C and Company (makeup for cancelled July 1/2 concert)
