Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. Fall River's population was 88,857 at the 2010 census, making it the tenth largest city in the state. The current mayor of the city is Will Flanagan, re-elected for a second term in 2011.
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 Dr. Irving Fradkin founded Dollars for Scholars here in 1958.
Fall River is well known for Lizzie Borden, Portuguese Culture, and Battleship Cove the world's largest collection of World War II naval vessels and the home of the USS Massachusetts (BB-59). Fall River is also the only city in the United States to have its city hall located over an interstate highway. Fall River was and is unique for the fact that it has two large lakes (originally one lake) on the eastern part of the city, which is higher in elevation, with a river emptying out of the ponds and flowing two miles through the heart of the city, emptying out into the deep bay/estuary in the western part of the city. The Quequechan River once flowed through downtown and finally down a series of eight steep waterfalls, into the Taunton River at the head of the deep Mount Hope Bay. Fall River is one of the few places on the east coast of the United States to have such a feature in its geography, along with the natural Fall River granite quarried there. The Quequechan River's waterpower potential and natural granite helped form and shape Fall River into the city it is today.
Read more about Fall River: Geography, Demographics, Culture, Library, Transportation, Soccer, Points of Interest, People From Fall River
Famous quotes containing the words fall and/or river:
“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)
“Sitting in that dusky wilderness, under that dark mountain, by the bright river which was full of reflected light, still I heard the wood thrush sing, as if no higher civilization could be attained. By this time the night was upon us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)