Memorial Day Breakfast. Historical Destination.

Bill Hoffman proud Veteran

 Took my Vietnam Veteran Husband out to The Town Common Restaurant in Hopedale today to celebrate Memorial day. A young couple (who we didn't know) bought our breakfast! How nice was that? They left with out a word, we didn't get a chance to thank them

The Town Common is a new discovery for me. I am always in search of perfect breakfast spots and this one ranks high. The location, across from a park and beautiful old stone church is gorgeous. Breakfast is served on Fiesta wear in a variety of colors. You can watch the owner cook your delicious meal from and opening looking into the tidy kitchen, and the waitresses are amazing (one helpful gal helped me when I could not shut of the data sucking app Waze!)

Below is a bit of cool history about this scenic little town.

Outside Town Common

Hopedale Community a Utopian dream, becomes a self-contained Company Town

 Founded in in 1842 Adin Ballou and his followers purchased 600 acres of land on which they built homes for the community members, chapels and factories.
Ballou believed that he could create a Utopian community blending the features of a factory town with those of a religion-based commune. The community stood for temperance, abolitionism, women's rights, spiritualism  and education.

Fourteen years later the intentional community was converted into a textile factory town. The factories were purchased by George and Ebenezer Draper.

Inside Town Common. Refinished wood and brick.

The Drapers believed that good houses make good workers and created a model self-contained company town with one of the best collections of architecturally significant double houses in the country, built on hills and in valleys in garden settings which preserved the views. The company charged low rents, and provided high quality housing, impeccable maintenance and recreation opportunities. Workers left their handsomely designed duplex houses to walk to work, then left work to play in company parks or stroll along company streets.  

Side door leading into Town Hall. Stained glass windows not visible.

 The Town Common Restaurant is in the Town Hall. The architecture inside and out is grand. We drove around the town of well designed houses imagining what a great place it must have been for the factory workers of long ago.

The planned community with innovative 19th and early 20th century employee housing, remain essentially intact today.