The commemorative booklet published in conjunction with Lowell’s Centennial in 1926 contained brief sketches of some of the city’s most significant buildings. Here’s what was written about Lowell High School:
In preparation for the erection of our new High School building, which was completed and occupied in 1922, all the dwellings on the west side of Kirk street and those on Anne street, the “Orphanage” alone excepted, were demolished.
Beginning at a point two hundred and twenty feet from Merrimack street this new school-house extends northerly four hundred and fifty-six feet to French street. It contains one hundred and forty rooms, is manned by one hundred and five teachers who give instruction to twenty-six hundred pupils. This spacious enlargement also made necessary the demolition of the Kirk Street Congregational meeting-house which had been used as a place of worship since December 17, 1846, on which date it was dedicated.
Between the western line of Anne street and the canal lies the strip of land known as Lucy Larcom Park.
Miss Larcom, in whose honor the park is named, was born in Beverly, Massachusetts in 1826. Coming to Lowell in her girlhood she found employment in the mills and while here was a contributor to a magazine published by a group of mill-girls and called the “Lowell Offering.” Later Miss Larcom achieved fame as a writer of prose and poetry. She died in Boston, April 15, 1893.
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