Published in The Pawtucket Times on November, 5, 2001

A statewide open house will be held on Nov. 12 as a way to restore America’s sagging spirit by recognizing Rhode Island’s unique heritage and its historic sites.   One Veterans Day, admissions at stately mansions and unique windmills, working farms and treasured museums in northern Rhode Island across the state will be waved.

Free admission at more than 40 Rhode Island sites on Veterans Day follows on the heels of National park Service Director Fran Mainella’s recent visit to the Visitor Center in Pawtucket, where she announced the waiving of all fees at every national park during Veterans Day weekend.  She called for historic sites across America to join in as well.  At press time, additional sites and programs are signing up daily. 

“We’re happy that so many sites across the 45-mile long Blackstone Valley Corridor have found the ability to open their doors on this important occasion to support the National Park effort”, stated Bob Billington, president of the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council.  “This is one of the few times where you can get great history for no cost,” he said.

Pawtucket.  Come to downtown Pawtucket to visit Slater Mill Historic Site, the birthplace of America’s Industrial Revolution.  In December 1790, Samuel Slater pioneered America’s first water-powered cotton spinning mill.  Today, the museum complex along the Blackstone River includes the old Slater Mill, the Wilkinson Mill, the Sylvanus Brown House, and collections of hand-operated and powered machinery on 5.5 acres in Pawtucket.  Slater Mill will make its admissions free on each day of the holiday weekend courtesy of Fleet Bank on Newport Avenue.

Central Falls.  Still have some time on your hands?  Come visit the Lysander and Susan Flagg Museum and Cultural Center, adjacent to the Central Falls Free Public Library.  The museum and library are home to a collection of paintings by Lorenzo Denevers, a famous Central Falls painter who was a classmate of Picasso.  One room of the museum houses military artifacts, texts and pictures from the Civil War, along with those from World War I, World War II, the Korean, Vietnam and Panama conflicts.  The museum also holds personal sketches of the members of the Sullivan-Ballou Post of Civil War veterans.

Additionally, a beautifully written, emotional letter by Maj. Sullivan Ballou, a Rhode Island lawyer and politician who served in the Union, to his wife is displayed.  This letter was featured in Ken Burn’s critically acclaimed 1990 documentary “The Civil War”, where the soldier predicted his own death and proclaims his love for his wife, children and country.

Woonsocket.  Or take a leisurely drive and discover the Rhode Island Historical Society’s Museum of Work and Culture in Woonsocket.  This interactive museum re-recreates the unique labor story documenting the rise of the Independent Textile Union which grew to dominate every aspect of city life.

Changing exhibits and special events present a compelling story of the French Canadians who left farms in Quebec for the mill factories in Rhode Island.  At this museum, exhibits re-create the typical Quebecois farmhouse, a shop floor in a textile mill, a front porch of a three-family apartment house, also providing views from a church pew and a school desk, or the inside of a 1934 union hall.

For more information, call the Museum of Work and Culture at (401) 769-9675; Slater Mill Historic Site at (401) 725-8638; or The Lysander and Susan Flagg Museum at (401) 727-7440.