Above is the northwest section of the 1899 view of Hopedale. The cemetery can be seen in the upper part. The mansion near the upper left was the home of Samuel Walker. The Draper shops are on the right. The tower to the left of them is part of the hose house, the town fire station before he Dutcher Street station was built. The town hall and the Harrsion block are in the upper left. Roughly halfway between the Harrison block and the hose house is the just completed in time for this, Bancroft Library. In the foreground, a bit left of center is one of three octagon houses that were in Hopedale in the 1800s.
Bancroft Park is in the upper right corner of this view, although the distance past the railroad tracks seems a bit exaggerated. The Henry Patrick icehouse, on the shore of Hopedale Pond can be seen in the lower right corner. The intersection of Dutcher and Freedom streets is at the bottom middle. The boarding house called the Park House is at that corner at the lower left. Another boarding house, the Hopedale House is at the left edge of the picture. The block where the fire station and Atria Draper Place are now was filled with houses in 1899. The main Draper office at that time is slightly left of center. The Dutcher Street School, new that year, can be seen at the Dutcher-Freedom intersection with the Chapel Street School just beyond and to the left of it.
Prospect Street intersects with Freedom Street near the right of this view, and continues on through what is now the town park. I think that part of Prospect Street was never built, but it was planned at the time this view was being drawn and the artist decided to include it. It’s also shown in a map drawn in 1898, but the Park Commission was formed in 1899 and immediately got to work on establishing the park. Nothing was mentioned in the early Park Commission reports about a road existing on the land they were converting to a park. They just referred to it as a swampy, rocky area. The 1898 map shows the land in the foreground was owned by Felix Kearney (toward the left), and Delano Patrick. (toward the right.)
The open space in this view became the town park, although it looks much too small here. Again, it shows Prospect Street passing through and curving onto Northrop Street. As far as I know, this street was never actually built. It was proposed, and I think the artist who drew this expected it would be there in a year or so, so decided to include it. Before that happened, the land was taken for the town park. Northrop didn’t go up the hill to the intersection with Freedom Street at that time. The street at the lower right eventually was named Park Street.