Hopedale History
November 2025
No 445
National Register Nomination
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Twenty-five years ago – November 2000 –Expedition 1 to the International Space Station begins.
United States presidential election: No winner can be declared, prompting a controversial recount in Florida.
Fifty years ago -November 1975 – The 729-foot long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks during a storm 17 miles from the entrance to Whitefish Bay on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew members on board (an event immortalized in song by Gordon Lightfoot).
Juan Carlos is declared King of Spain following the death of General Francisco Franco; he will reign until his abdication in 2014.
One-hundred years ago – November 1925 – The weekly country music-variety radio programme Grand Ole Opry is first broadcast on WSM radio in Nashville, Tennessee, as the “WSM Barn Dance”.
November 9 – Formal foundation date of the Schutzstaffel (SS) as a personal bodyguard for Adolf Hitler in Germany.
News items above are from Wikipedia. For Hopedale news from 25, 50 and 100 years ago see below this textbox.
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National Register Nomination
In 2002, the Hopedale Historical Commission decided to apply to the National Park Service to establish part of Hopedale as a National Historic District. They began the process by hiring preservation consultant Kathleen Kelly Broomer to create the necessary nomination document. Here below are a few paragraphs from the beginning of it.
The Hopedale Village Historic District displays a range of buildings, designed landscapes, structures, and objects associated with Hopedale’s development from its settlement as a utopian community in 1841 to 1951, the end of the period of significance.
The district’s central feature is the Draper Corporation’s industrial complex, referenced here as the Draper plant. The two earliest roads in the village, Freedom Street and Mendon Street, cross the river valley from northeast to southwest. Freedom Street, a late 17th century road from Mendon to the Mill River, was continued in the early 18th century northeast from the river to Milford. Near the river crossing was the 1703 farm of John Jones, later the site of the Hopedale Community settlement. Mendon Street, an early 18th century road to Sherborn, is a segment of the regional artery known as State Route 16.
Hopedale Street and Dutcher Street, both laid out in 1843, are the principal north-south arteries through the district. The street grid between Hopedale and Dutcher streets immediately northeast of the Draper plant largely dates to the utopian community period (1841-1856), and includes streets named Hope, Peace, Union, Social, Chapel, and Freedom. The growth of the industrial complex brought changes to the original street pattern, which formerly had provided direct connections between streets on the east and west banks of the Mill River near the mill. Now, only the Freedom Street connection survives. On the west bank of the river, Cemetery Street (originally part of Union Street, (mid-1840s) survives in an amputated form, having once provided direct access to Hopedale Village Cemetery from the utopian settlement on the opposite bank. Finally, in the late 1840s, Hopedale Street extended south beyond the present Mendon Street to Greene Street. This extension provided a direct connection between the utopian settlement and the earlier 18th century villages of Spindleville, South Hopedale and Hartford Turnpike Village in the southern part of town.
Many of the historic district’s 19th century roads were laid out in connection with the utopian settlement. A few, however, were built under the direction of the Drapers in connection with their creation of a model company town. Two of these were located south of the utopian community’s street grid. Draper Street, built in 1868, continued the street grid for another block to the southeast, and is today at the center of the town’s institutional core. The next street south is Adin Street, the location historically of most of the mill proprietor’s residences. Adin Street was laid out in the late 1860s from Hopedale Street to the Milford town line. Three subdivisions of Draper Company employee housing constructed at the turn of the 20th century produced new roads designed by landscape architects. Northwest of the utopian street grid and Draper industrial complex was Bancroft Park (1896-1903), with layout designed by Warren Henry Manning, and the Lake Point Group (principally 1910-1912), with layout designed by Arthur Shurtleff (aka Shurcliff). Shurtleff also designed the layout for the Upper Jones Group (ca. 1913).
Hopedale News – November 2000
Hopedale News – November 1975
Hopedale News – November 1925
