page_title: Fall River, Massachusetts
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Fall River, Massachusetts / History / Industrial development and prosperity / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Beneath the Braga Bridge and Route 79 elevated Viaduct, Fall River, Massachusetts
context_page_description: Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The City of Fall River's population was 88,857 at the 2010 census, making it the tenth-largest city in the state. Located along the eastern shore of Mount Hope Bay at the mouth of the Taunton River, the city became famous during the 19th century as the leading textile manufacturing center in the United States. While the textile industry has long since moved on, its impact on the city's culture and landscape remains to this day. Fall River's official motto is "We'll Try", dating back to the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1843. It is also nicknamed the "Scholarship City" because Irving Fradkin founded Dollars for Scholars there in 1958. In 2017, mayor Jasiel Correia introduced the "Make It Here" slogan as part of a citywide rebranding effort.
  Fall River is known for the Lizzie Borden case, Portuguese culture, its numerous 19th-century textile mills and Battleship Cove, the world's largest collection of World War II naval vessels and the home of the battleship USS Massachusetts. Fall River is also the only city in the United States to have its city hall located over an interstate highway, Interstate 195.
context_section_description: Fall River rode the wave of economic prosperity well into the early 20th century. During this time, the city boasted several fancy hotels, theaters, and a bustling downtown. As the city continually expanded during the late 19th century, its leaders built several fine parks, schools, streetcar lines, a public water supply, and sewerage system to meet the needs of its growing population.
  From 1896 to 1912, Fall River was the headquarters of the E. P. Charlton & Company chain of five and ten cent stores.  Founded at Fall River in 1890 by Seymour H. Knox and Earle Perry Charlton as the Knox & Charlton Five and Ten Cent Store, by the time of its merger with several other retailers to form the F. W. Woolworth Company in 1912, Charlton operated fifty-eight stores in the United States and Canada.
  In 1920 the population of Fall River peaked at 120,485.
  The cotton mills of Fall River had built their business largely on one product: print cloth. About 1910, the city's largest employer, the American Printing Company (APC), employed 6,000 people and was the largest company printer of cloth in the world. Dozens of other city mills solely produced cloth to be printed at the APC. The city's industry had all its eggs in one, very large basket.
  World War I had provided a general increase in demand for textiles, and many of the mills of New England benefited during this time. The post-war economy quickly slowed, however, and production quickly outpaced demand. The Northern mills faced serious competition from their Southern counterparts due to factors such as lower labor and transportation costs, as well as the South's large investment in new machinery and other equipment. In 1923, Fall River faced the first wave of mill closures. Some mills merged and were able to limp along until the late 1920s. By the 1930s and the Great Depression, many more mills were out of business and the city was bankrupt. A few somehow managed to survive through World War II and into the 1950s.
  The worst fire in Fall River's history occurred on the evening of February 2, 1928. It began when workers were dismantling the recently vacated Pocasset Mill. During the night the fire spread quickly and wiped out a large portion of downtown. City Hall was spared but was badly damaged. Today, many of the structures near the corner of North Main and Bedford Street date from the early 1930s, as they were rebuilt soon after the fire.
  The once mighty American Printing Company finally closed for good in 1934. In 1937, their huge plant waterfront on Water Street was acquired by the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company and soon employed 2,600 people. In October 1941, just a few weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor, a huge fire broke out in the old 1860s' main building of the print works. The fire was a major setback to the U.S. war effort, as $15 million in raw rubber (30,000 lbs.) was lost in the inferno.
  With the demise of the textile industry, many of the city's mills were occupied by smaller companies, some in the garment industry, traditionally based in the New York City area but attracted to New England by the lure of cheap factory space and an eager workforce in need of jobs. The garment industry survived in the city well into the 1990s but has also largely become a victim of globalization and foreign competition.
caption: Route 79 viaduct and Braga Bridge approaches, Fall River, Massachusetts. The Quequechan River flows beneath the parking lot. The viaduct was demolished in 2014 and replaced with a surface boulevard.
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