Voting Station

Fall River, Massachusetts

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Location

The Resume

    Tenth largest city in Massachusetts
    Officiated in 1803
    Located in Bristol County, Massachusetts (adjacent to the Mount Hope Bay and the Taunton River)
    Leading textile manufacturer, in the country, throughout the 19th-century
    Nicknames are 'Spindle City' and 'Scholarship City'
    Population: 88,857 (2010)
    Official motto is 'We'll Try'
    Attained notoriety as the site of the Lizzie Borden murder trial (1893)

Why Fall River, Massachusetts might be annoying:

    George Stephanopoulos spent his formative years there.
    It has the distinction of being the only major city whose 'city hall' is located above the interstate.
    Its city design originally situated the wealthier homes and more affluent communities well at the top of a hill, 'looking down' on the working-class homes.
    Into the early 20th-century, its society was marred by prejudice towards Catholics (mainly the Irish/French Canadian/Portuguese workers who lived 'at the bottom of the hill').
    It became the center of the media circus and non-stop newspaper coverage of the Borden murder trial (even though the actual legal proceedings occurred in the nearby New Bedford).
    That the elite Borden family was among the handful of some seven wealthy families who ruled over the city further contributed to the magnitude of the scandal.
    In the aftermath of the trial, it benefited from a thriving 'Bordenmania' tourist industry which took the place of its waning reign as textile capital of the world.
    Visiting 'Borden fanatics' have quite an itinerary to fill; between the family home where the killings took place (now a Bed & Breakfast), the 'house on the hill' Lizzie purchased after her acquittal (where she died alone), the Borden family burial plot, and finally the Fall River Historical Society (which houses artifacts surrounding the case).

Why Fall River, Massachusetts might not be annoying:

    At its peak, no other US city produced more cotton textiles.
    By the end of the 19th-century, over 500 million yards of cloth was manufactured by its mills annually (hence the nickname 'Spindle City').
    Worldwide, it was also second only to Manchester, England, worldwide as the leading textile-producer.
    It is to home to Battleship Cove, which houses the world's largest collection of retired warships.
    Its ‘We'll Try’ dates back to the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1843, which destroyed the entire town center.
    It attained the nickname 'Scholarship City' because Dr. Irving Fradkin founded Dollars for Scholars there (1958).
    It hosted a thriving Portuguese community in the late 1870s, who immigrated to the US from the Sao Miguel Island of Azores.
    The Bordens traced their ancestry in the city back to the early 1700s, when Richard Borden made his fortune buying water rights to the Quequechan Shores.
    The Lizzie Borden House attracts between 50-300 visitors (on average about 54,000 visitors annually).
    The House is also a popular attraction for self-proclaimed ghost hunters who are convinced it is haunted (tourists are also permitted to pose for photos in the places where Mr. and Mrs. Borden were killed).

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 7 Votes: 28.57% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 5 Votes: 40.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 7 Votes: 28.57% Annoying