In the Mill, on the River and at the Boarding House

Today (Monday), we started out the morning with a look at what makes the looms work. We hopped on a trolley and headed over to one of the National Parks "educational" mills. There are these HUGE gears that some genius figured out. They are scary big! They make the water wheels work, which creates the energy needed to run the factory. A newspaper reporter was there "reporting" on all the teachers visiting the site.

After a huge lunch, we took a boat ride to see the locks of Lowell. The water was higher than usual today. The guide said that usually NO water is coming down the falls. Lowell has two major falls...helping create the power. One is 13 feet and one is 17 feet. This one is a baby one.

The river was really calm and pretty until we met up with another river!!!! and then it got just a little rocky. We were told to keep our hands in and don't touch the rocks...your hand will probably get crushed. Ouch!

When we arrived at the locks (very cool) we met this young man. He told us how the locks works (genius) to raise and lower the water level. He also told us about the floods of Lowell. If you look at the wall, you can see where the water crested in 1852 (carved in stone) and again in 1936 (painted on the wall). Fortunately, Mr. Francis had prepared a flood wall barrier (The Great Wall) and it saved the city twice. Until that first time, his barrier was called "Francis's Folly. He showed them, huh? When the big flood of 2006 came, they used steel bars instead of the wall because of its historical value. It worked well. Engineers learned a lot!

Lots of items were carried up the canal..here are the charges for each item. Most of the items were lumber-ish. They did haul manure too! Wouldn't you like to be on that boat ride?

When we returned to the mill, we tried two experiments. Some people tried out different kinds of water wheels and some built canals and dams. I was with the lady from Kansas (how appropriate) and the lady from China (she came all the way from China for this workshop!) We got a real workout filling the tubs for each experiment.

Before dinner, we toured the boarding house where the mill girls would live. It costs them about one third of their pay to live at the boarding house. There meals were provided (and they were huge!) and they stayed in a bedroom with three other girls or in the attic. They generally had 30 minutes to run from the mill to the boarding house to eat and return to work. The boarding house was at least one block away. The girls lived by the clock! I don't know how they did it. We ended our evening with a boarding house meal. It was served by boarding house matrons. The apple pie was outstanding. However, they usually ate apple pie for breakfast along with fried fish, fried potatoes, bread and tea. I don't know how they ate as much as they did and went back to work in the stifling mill.