I have lived in a few different places in the USA including Phoenix Arizona, Philadelphia Pennsysvania, and Providence Rhode Island.

And I served four years in the Army which brought me to living in Texas, Missouri and Germany.

But, for the lion's share of my life I have lived in the city of Fall River in Massachusetts.

It's my home town and has a population of about 9ok people So, it's a small city.

I have been training for a pilgrimage to Spain. It's a 500 mile walk. So, I have been walking all over my city. And lately I have been taking my camera with me. So, I have been getting a lot of great pictures of my home town.

This next picture is special for me. At first I had to laugh at the dead teddy bear down by the river - wondering about the crime and how he got there.

But there is a bit of symbolism in this image. Fall River, one hundred years ago, was a fabric, cloth, and thread powerhouse. It was a world wide supplier of textiles. But that industry died off a long time ago. And this cloth bear is a symbol of that death.

The city is quite unique in a few different aspects. Several decades ago we needed to build a new city hall. But there was nowhere to put it. We came up with the idea to build it right over the highway that passes through the city. So that's what we did. It's quite unique and it it one of the few government buildings built right over a highway. Might be the only one.

That's interstate 195 North and South passing under it.

And of the history of the city our most famous citizen is probably Lizzie Borden. The home where the murders happened is now a Bed and Breakfast with a museum gift shop behind it.

The big reason why Fall River was a textile powerhouse is water. It is on the bank of a river and it has a series of smaller waterways which used to have waterfalls. These waterfalls powered the various textile mills. The city is still filled with many of these large and bland granite mill buildings.

And, being on the bank of a river the city has an amazing museum of actual Naval Vessels. it is called Battleship Cove and it has a Battleship, a submarine, and more. All nestled under a bridge. (Braga Bridge).

There are still buildings and stories that remain in the city, as a byproduct of it's hey dey as a fabric powerhouse.

The Durfee family owned mills and in the 1880's a 35 year old Durfee man passed away. His name was B.M.C. Durfee. And, his mother decided to gift the city a high school in memory of him. It cost a million dollars, which at the time was an astonishing sum of money. She had two requests.

The first being that the high school be named after her son. Which it was. And the second request is that it have a bell tower and that the bells be rung 35 times every day for 100 years. And that promise was kept. I went to this high school for one year before they closed it down. But, they continued to ring the bells until the 100 year commitment was fulfilled. A few years after that it was renovated and turned into a courthouse.

Here it is now. That's a telescope observatory dome on the left. And on the right is the clock/bell tower. The telescope has been moved to the new high school and the bells no longer ring. It is a beautiful and majestic old New England building.

The Rolling Rock -

A particularly quirky landmark in the city is called "The Rolling Rock". It is a large conglomerated rock that is simply laying on a granite base. This is exactly how mother nature placed it during the glacier period. Instead of getting rid of it the city decided to make it a monument.

There is a story about this rock. They say that it used to be loose. And that you could put your back against it and push and it would rock. So, you could rock the boulder in place. They say that the native americans who lived here used this as a test of strength.

It is pinned into place now so it is not able to rock. It's a safety measure.

I am quite enamored by this rock and by the test of strength. I ended up using this idea and this story in one of my novels. (The Left Handed Sword)

Interested in reading my novel? It is available on Amazon:

The Left Handed Sword

This is not your typical fantasy world.
There is no magic and there are no horses.
If you get into a fight and start muttering words and waving your arms around you are going to get an ax right in the face. And if you want to get somewhere you better start walking.
It's a dangerous world where nothing, and no one, can be trusted - including what you think you are seeing with your own two eyes.
It all starts when our "hero" lying in the mud on the bank of an unknown river opens one eye and has to make the decision to either give up or not to give up.
Adventure? No.
Ordeal? Yes.
There are only two ways a man can be stopped; by death or by his own giving up.
The biggest enemy is the one that lies within. Available on Amazon here

St. Annes Church is a landmark in the city. It stands at the top of a very large park that spreads almost all the way down to the river.

I am standing in the same spot for this next picture. I have just turned around to show you part of the park that extends down toward the river.

The Fall River Historical Society

And here's the Public Library on North Main street. The inscription above the door reads: "The People's University".

Here is another beautiful granite building in the city. It used to be the courthouse and registry of deeds. It is now a childrens museum.

Five years ago I donated the mascot from my website (El Guapo the dragon) to this museum. They keep him locked up in the basement :) The kids get a big kick out of him and they call him "The dinosaur".

And, to return to the Lizzie Borden story for just one more picture. Being the courthouse in the past she did spend a short period of time locked up in this tiny cell.

It's a bit of a notoriety. She was moved to New Bedford where the actual trial took place so she didn't spend a lot of time in this cell. Now they use the cell to store halloween stuff :)

Let me leave you with one more thing about Fall River. The whole city is about seven miles long and perched along the side of a river - on a slope. So, a lot of the city looks down on the river.

And, a common architectural feature of many of the homes from 100 years ago is that that had a structure on top of them called a widow's watch.

The legend and name comes from the wives and widows who could sit up there and look down on the river waiting for their sailing and fishing husbands ships to return. These next two pictures show the widow's watch. It is that small square structure right on the roof.

This next picture gives you a sense for how the city looks down on the river.

One amazing thing about the architecture in the city is the red brick smoke stacks. They are an engineering marvel and quite a few of them still remain. I am just in awe by the fact that these things were laid brick by brick by craftsmen. And they have stood the test of time and substantial weather over the past hundred years including hurricanes.

Sadly the city has a homeless problem. There are several encampments of them. Out of respect for their privacy I won't show you any pictures of the homeless or their encampments but here is a picture of an area near one of the encampments.