Draper demolition - MDN article   

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                                                    Legacy Looms over Hopedale

                                                                     By Rick Holmes
                                                               Milford Bureau Chief

    Hopedale is a town with an especially interesting and colorful past, as we will learn in the weeks ahead
    as Hopedale celebrates its centennial. But what of Hopedale’s future? Will there be time amidst the
    birthday parties to contemplate Hopedale’s next 100 years?

     Founded as a Christian socialist commune, Hopedale filled up with idealists in the mido-1800s. But
    when the commune’s converts diluted its idealism, its chief financial backers, the loom-building Draper
    brothers, pulled out their money, bankrupted the community and took the community into their own
    hands. (As to the “loom-building Drapers,” both Draper men of the Hopedale Community, Ebenezer
    and George, had died before the Draper Company sold its first loom. The source of the Draper money
    in the Community years was a loom part, the temple.)

    As the Draper loom company came to dominate the American textile industry, Hopedale became the
    Draper’s personal fiefdom. It was a company town in the fullest sense. The company owned the real
    estate, many of the homes in which its workers lived, and most of the town buildings.

    It was a benevolent dictatorship according to the prevailing consensus. The workers were well treated,
    their homes well cared for, their children well educated in schools subsidized by the Drapers.
    Then, in 1978, what was left of Draper headed south, taking Hopedale’s identity with it. For a while,
    there was widespread pity for the poor deserted residents of Hopedale.

    But no one’s looking for pity now. Hopedale is on the rebound, its residents building new bridges
    between the legacy of its unusual past and a bright – if still somewhat undefined – future.
    A town government study committee, for instance, is working on adapting the town’s organization to
    today’s needs. There was a time when virtually every town official was a Draper employee. Selectmen
    used to hold meetings during the day at the factory where they worked. Town records were kept at
    Draper’s main office, where most of the important town decisions were made.

    Even now, stern-faced portraits of Drapers gaze down on the selectmen as they deliberate at Town
    Hall. But the coordination between departments and elected officials that used to come from the
    Draper managers has now been lost. So, the study committee is looking into centralizing the town’s
    organizational structure to make it more accessible to residents and more able to cope with the
    increasingly complex demands on local government.

    The school system is also adjusting. With a big assist from the Drapers, Hopedale created a school
    system that has long been the town’s pride and joy. But with Proposition 2 ½, a smaller tax base and a
    growing student population, Superintendent Donald Hayes and the School Committee have begun
    studying options. One committee is being assigned the task of evaluating the adequacy of current
    school facilities, while another will look into the advantages of joining a regional school system, a hot
    topic in town for years.

    Meanwhile, the Planning Board is studying is studying a radical zoning bylaw proposed by Frank
    Zersky, Jr., a local man with some land he’d like to develop. Zersky’s proposal is highly conceptual and
    mind-numbingly complicated. It attempts to free developers from the standard frontage and setback
    requirements that hinder imaginative projects, while giving town officials more control over density,
    resource protection and the strain on town services large residential developments can create.

    Because it is new, ambitious and complex, Zersky’s proposed bylaw faces an uphill battle. But it is
    being given fair consideration, and that in itself is a sign of the conscientiousness with which Hopedale
    residents and officials are facing the future. Of Hopedale’s 5.3 square miles, there is not a lot of land
    left to develop, so every major project must be evaluated with great care.

    The biggest question mark in Hopedale’s future is also the biggest reminder of Hopedale’s past. The
    huge Draper factory sits vacant and largely silent, still dominating the heart of Hopedale.

     The jobs lost when the factory closed are still missed, but the people have gotten used to the quiet in
    Hopedale’s center. Concerted efforts are still being made to find new tenants for the sprawling facility,
    but the noise and traffic of a major industry may not be what today’s residents want so close to
    residential neighborhoods.

    The legacy of Draper looms large over Hopedale years after the company left this town behind. But as
    Hopedale’s second century opens, today’s residents are actively building a bright new future.

    A Milford Daily News article from a binder of Hopedale news clippings saved by John
    Butcher.

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Hopedale News - August 1920

    Clippings from the weekly Milford Gazette,
    saved at the Bancroft Library.

Click here for photos of the Hopedale Centennial parade.

  Click here for the Centennial book and articles.   

  Centennial parade on YouTube