Woodlawn Bingo
Play Woodlawn Bingo!
Download the Bingo card, or pick one up at various Woodlawn locations and begin playing.
Play Rules:
1. Take a selfie or group shot in front of each site and send it as a message to our Facebook page (Heritage Alliance of Pawtucket).
2. Woodlawn Bingo is not a contest; you can play at your own pace. The game will run until October 31, 2022.
3. Get five in a row and you can choose a $25.00 gift card from one of the participating businesses. We’ll be in touch to ask how you’d like to receive your prize.
4. There are no limits on the number of people who can win, but each person can win only once.
5. Please be considerate of all properties and occupants when taking your selfies. Please don’t trespass; you only need to show us that you found the location.
List of Gift Card Choices:
When Interstate 95 sliced through Pawtucket in the 1950s, all of the city’s neighborhoods were affected, but none as severely as Woodlawn, which was divided in half. Nearly 100 houses had to be demolished or relocated, many families were displaced, and once-thriving businesses on Mineral Spring Avenue began to fail when they were physically separated from patrons. Woodlawn is a densely populated neighborhood of diverse cultures. There are dozens of multi-family homes built for factory workers, several mill complexes, many beautiful churches, two 19th-century auto service stations, and the city’s only remaining purpose-built fire station, in operation until just last year.
Most of Pawtucket’s early mill owners relied on the power of the Blackstone River to produce their goods. With the increased success of steam power in the mid-19th century, factories were no longer bound to the river. The area just west of downtown was less crowded and businesses had room to expand. There also was convenient access to the new (1848) Providence and Worcester Railroad line, by which supplies could be delivered and finished goods distributed. Between 1840 and 1890, companies such as Union Wadding, the James Brown Machine Shop, William Haskell Manufacturing, American File, Lorraine Mills, Colonial Mills, the Darling Rendering Company, and the Conant Thread Company were built in what we now call the Church Hill Industrial District. Later, factories such as Hope Webbing and the Narragansett Machine Company built their plants in southern Pawtucket, near the Providence city line.
Beginning in the early 19th century, skilled workers from Scotland and England arrived to help establish Pawtucket’s industries. In 1830, the city had 3,300 residents. Fifty years later, there were 18,500 residents, and immigrants from Ireland, Canada, and Portugal made up most of the labor force. By 1920, Pawtucket had a population of 64,000, which then included groups from Italy, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Cape Verde.
Before Woodlawn was developed as a neighborhood, the area was mostly open ground. Several families - Bagley, Comstock, Scott, Esten, Jenks - had farms between the Blackstone River and the North Providence town line. As the mills and factories prospered and grew, they employed more workers, and in the 1850s, Woodlawn began to evolve as a residential neighborhood.
In 1875, a Baptist Sunday School was founded by members of the First Baptist Church in Pawtucket In its early years, the group met in the Fairmount Fire House at the corner of Brown and Washington Streets. By the 1890s there were 59 families attending, and they decided to establish an independent parish and build their own church building, which came to be known as the Woodlawn Baptist Church. The current building was constructed in 1901, and was significantly altered in 1937.
Designed in 1912 by Pawtucket-based architect R.C.N. Monahan, station #1 was the last of the city’s early fire stations that was still used for its original purpose—it remained functional until 2018. The six-pointed star, often associated with Judaism, is a curious detail. The symbol was used in alchemy to represent the elements of fire and water, and was also associated with freemasonry.
Fire Station #1
Gilbane’s Service Station
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, this unusual building with an Art Deco tower was built in 1931 by Gilbane as an automotive service station which offered repair services and fuel. The Gilbane organization owned three locations in Pawtucket and operated an extensive fuel oil and oil burner business. Their non-automotive operations gradually expanded, and the Pawtucket Avenue station was eventually converted to office and private garage space for the company.
The building is now home to businesses like Ramon’s Pizza and M&K Wholesale.
The Fifth Ward Wardroom, designed by William R. Walker & Son in 1886, was originally a polling place and meeting hall. It was later used as a school and the Henrietta I. Drummond Post of the American Legion before being converted into a single family residence. At the time of this building’s construction, Pawtucket was a newly incorporated city and had given up its town-meeting form of governance. This is one of only three extant wardrooms in Rhode Island—one other is the First Ward Wardroom on Fountain Street in Pawtucket, also designed by William R. Walker & Son.
Fifth Ward Wardroom
In 1844, French speaking parishioners in Pawtucket asked Bishop Hendricken for permission to attend mass at the small chapel connected to the Woodlawn Home for the Aged until they could raise the funds for their own building. The parish trustees secured a loan in 1886 to finance construction of a small wooden chapel on Quincy Avenue (on land over which I-95 now runs).
By 1895, the congregation was fast outgrowing the small building and they again got a loan for a new building. The second building was completely destroyed by fire in 1918. The third and current building was designed in 1925 by Ernest Cormier of Montreal, and is very similar to Cormier’s Notre Dame De Guadalupe Church in Montreal.
The ceiling is decorated with artwork by Jean Desauliers and the stained glass windows depict paintings by Parisian artists. St. John the Baptist now conducts mass in English, Spanish and Portuguese. The convent building across the street is now a halfway house, and the school building no longer exists.
Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, commonly known as St. Mary’s, is the city's oldest Catholic church, and the second oldest in Rhode Island. In 1829, despite the downturn in Pawtucket’s prosperity, there was an increasing number of Catholics (predominantly Irish) working in nearby factories and living in this neighborhood. Workers assured industrialist David Wilkinson that they would settle in Pawtucket permanently if they had a church, so he gave them a parcel of land on George Street. Because of the economic depression, the parishioners were able to raise only half the cost of the new building—the remainder was paid by the archdiocese of Boston.
The wooden church building was erected in 1830, but emigration steadily continued and St. Mary’s needed a bigger building fifty years later. In 1885, the cornerstone was laid by Bishop Hendricken and in two years the new brick building was finished. The 1854 school building and the Father Delaney House have been demolished, and the 1891 school building and 1896 convent have been sold and are being renovated for residential use. The current rectory building was designed in 1909 by the local architecture firm of Murphy, Hindle, and Wright. The cemetery is from the 1830s and is one of the oldest Catholic cemeteries in RI.
Mineral Spring Cemetery
Civil War Memorial
This monument was erected by the Women’s Relief Corps in 1897. It is made of Westerly granite, extracted by the Smith Granite Company for the cost of $2537. It was formally dedicated on Memorial Day in 1902. There are twenty-eight markers inside the circular fence.
The Woman's Relief Corps (WRC) is the official women's auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic. They were formally recognized in 1883, for the purpose of perpetuating the memory of the Grand Army of the Republic, to help promote and run Memorial Day events, to petition the federal government for nurse pensions, and to promote patriotic education.
Varnum T. Barber House
This house was built in 1901 and is named for Varnum T. Barber, a superintendent at the Slater Cotton Company. Beech Street was cut off by the I-95 construction and most of the houses that were “in the way” were demolished. The buildings were claimed by eminent domain and their occupants evicted, though one house was moved from Beech Street to Mulberry Street.
James Childs House
The James E. Childs House was built in 1888 and designed by the architect Albert Hadfield Humes, whose works include Pawtucket Fire Station No. 2 (now the Pawtucket Senior Center) and the Cogswell Tower at Jenks Park in Central Falls.
Statue in front of Jeanne Jugan House
Jeanne Jugan, the founder of the Little Sisters of the Poor, was born in France in 1792. Her father was lost at sea when she was 4 years old. To help her mother support the family, Jeanne left home to work in a hospital. For many years she lived in a small apartment and led a quiet life of piety and good works. On a winter night in 1839, she saw a blind, paralyzed, elderly woman out in the cold alone. Jeanne brought the woman home to care for her. Eventually, more elderly and destitute women were brought to her doorstep and volunteers came to help. By 1841 the group outgrew Jeanne’s small apartment and moved into a larger house. They began calling themselves the Servants of the Poor and in 1844 were officially named Sisters of the Poor. In 1849 the name Little Sisters of the Poor was adopted. In March 1881, five Little Sisters traveled from France to open a home for the elderly of Rhode Island. They lived for two years in Providence and moved to Pawtucket in 1883. The current building was constructed in 1978 and is still staffed by the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Collyer Monument
The monument, which includes a life-size bronze sculpture, was built by sculptor Charles Parker Dowler to honor fallen Pawtucket firefighter Samuel Smith Collyer. After a stint in the post office, Collyer became a machinist and worked for about seven years before partnering with his uncle, Nathan S. Collyer. Nathan Collyer died in 1877 and Samuel inherited the business two years later.
From 1848 until his death, Collyer was connected to the fire departments of North Providence and Pawtucket, rising to the rank of Chief Engineer in 1874. In 1884 while responding to a fire alarm, hose carriage number one struck an upright stone post on the corner on Mineral Spring and Lonsdale Avenue and tipped over. All six firefighters were injured in the accident—Collyer was crushed underneath the carriage. He had a punctured lung and broken ribs, but managed to survive for almost three weeks before succumbing to his injuries. The monument was dedicated on the final day of Pawtucket's Cotton Centenary Celebration in 1890, attended by Governor John W. Davis. Samuel is buried in Riverside Cemetery.
Gold Machinery Mural
Founded in 1961, Gold Machinery has been serving the machinery and equipment needs of factories around the world for more than 60 years. Gold is a third-generation family business with locations along the East Coast, between Boston and New York.
Payne Park
In 2019, the city reopened Payne Park after extensive improvements, including a 2,500 square foot splash pad, lighted basketball courts, stage area, walking path, and new playground. The park renovations, which cost $1 million, were paid for through a $400,000 grant from RIDEM, $500,000 in CDBG funds, and a Parks and Recreation Bond.
Samuel Slater Middle School
Samuel Slater (1768-1835) is often called the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution." American industrialists, such as Moses Brown, had been struggling in the 18th century to build a consistently working spinning machine. Moses, with his son-in-law William Almy and his cousin Smith Brown, had started a mill in Pawtucket. They wanted to manufacture cloth for sale, using water-powered spinning wheels, jennies, and frames. They acquired a 32-spindle frame "after the Arkwright pattern," but could not operate it. The Arkwright design was named for its inventor Richard Arkwright who was English, and the English prevented the mill designs from being taken out of their country. Twenty-one year-old Samuel Slater was working with the Arkwright mill design in England, but recognized that if he wanted to become a superstar in the textile industry, he would have to emigrate to America. In 1790 he wrote to Moses Brown offering his services, and Moses accepted. Samuel signed a contract to replicate the British designs. The deal provided Slater with the funds to build the water frames and necessary machinery, with a half share in the profits. In 1793, Slater and Brown opened their first factory in Pawtucket.
Shea High School
Originally called Pawtucket West High School, Shea High was designed by architect John F. O'Malley and built in 1938-39 with funding from the Public Works Administration.
In 1977, the name of the school was officially changed to Charles E. Shea High School, after the popular principal and administrator. Shea served as principal from 1949 and 1959 and as superintendent for another 18 years.
The Hope Webbing Company was founded in 1883 in Providence by Charles Sisson and Oscar A. Steere. The business was incorporated in 1880 and by 1895 employed 350 men, women, and children to make 1,500,000 yards of products per day, including cotton, jute, worsted wool, hat bands, non-elastic webs, and hose supports. By 1930, the company claimed to be the country’s largest manufacturer (under one roof) of narrow fabrics—1,200 hundred looms and 800 braiding machines were producing belting, banding, binding, braids, and cords for life preservers, mattresses, pajamas, suspenders, trunks, and underwear.
Hope Webbing suffered a period of lowered sales during the Great Depression, but gained new life during WW2, employing 3,380 and becoming the largest employer in Pawtucket at the time. By 1955 the financial strain was too great, and the mill was sold to George A. Hovarth, who then sold it to HW Realty of Providence which was owned by the Rosen Family. Their company eventually went into receivership in 1998.
Urban Smart Growth, a real estate development and management company, acquired the mill complex in 2005 when it was being threatened with demolition for the erection of a big-box retail store. Now known as Hope Artiste village, the “community complex” is home to a diverse collection of businesses like The Met, Lock & Clue escape rooms, The Empowerment Factory, Providence Art Glass and Lighting, and BreakTime Bowl & Bar.
Art’s Auto
Constructed in 1928 as a service station for a Ford auto dealer, the building was later leased to the Mobil Oil Company and named for its operator, Arthur J. Normand. Before 1915, gas stations were designed as utilitarian structures exhibiting little or no architectural elaboration. Around 1915, the bungalow or Prairie School style became the predominant form used by regional and national oil companies to establish their corporate images.
Later, exotic styles and novelty structures were used to “catch the eyes” of passing motorists. This practice was the antithesis of standardization, which has now taken hold. Rather than each individual station being uniquely designed, oil companies, like retail stores, restaurants, etc., have established their identities and branding through strict uniformity.
Ama’s Variety Shop
A beloved figure in the community, Ama Amponsah (known to many as "Mama Ama”) owned and operated Ama’s Variety until her passing in 2021.
Vicente's, a small Brockton-based grocery chain with two other locations, opened this store “where the Ocean State Job Lot used to be” in the summer of 2021. They specialize in international foods, including African, Portuguese, Central American, and Colombian cuisines.
The Potter-Collyer House was built in 1863 as a one-and-a-half story timber-frame cottage with a gable roof, a style popular in Pawtucket during the mid-19th century. Subsequent additions and expansions (1877, 1895, 1902) added a two-story hip roof and significantly altered the floor plan, but the original Gothic bargeboards have remained. Elisha O. Potter, a machinist, built the house and four years later sold it to Samuel S. Collyer, who became the Chief of the Pawtucket Fire Department in 1874. The house was moved 400 feet from its original location on the west side of Pine Street in 1962 during the construction of I-95.
Potter-Collyer House
Bethany Free Baptist Church
Rhode Island, from its early acceptance of Baptist principles, was fertile territory for the vigorous growth of Freewill Baptist interests, but there was no church in the state. John Colby, a minister from New Hampshire, visited in 1812 and organized a church in Burrillville. Colby died in 1817 and in 1818, Clarissa H. Danforth, of Vermont, preached her first sermon in Burrillville. With Joseph White she organized the second church at Greenville in 1820. In that same year, Rev. Ray Potter organized a Free Baptist church in Pawtucket. This church was founded in 1892, and in 2017 celebrated its 125th anniversary.
Henrietta Drummond Memorial
This plaque is dedicated to the U.S. Army nurse Henrietta Isabella Drummond, the first Rhode Islander to make the ultimate sacrifice during World War I.
The house was built in 1878 for Theodore Waters Foster and was later sold in 1882 to George W. Payne (the son of aforementioned Charles Payne, and owner of G.W. Payne & Company). Born on May 19, 1847, Foster joined the Rhode Island Cavalry in 1863 and served in the American Civil War under Nathaniel P. Banks in the Red River Campaign. In 1873, he formed a jewelry manufacturing partnership on Chestnut Street in Providence named White, Foster & Company, which became major manufacturer of silver giftware such as jewelry, trays, pins, shoe horns, vanity sets, and desk accessories.
