The Saxonville Railroad opened on July 6, 1846 and brought many changes to Natick’s economy and culture.

The Old Natick Inn in South Natick

In the 1850s, the men and women of Natick were making nearly 1,300,000 pairs of shoes and boots each year.

The first baseball factory in America was built on Walnut Street in 1858 by Harrison Harwood.

Shoemaking started in Natick in the 1830s. H. P. Harwood & Sons pioneered the “figure eight” modern baseball in 1858, in the first baseball factory in America. Today Natick is a dynamic retail, research, and computer services center.

Take a trip down South during Reconstruction with Natick resident Albert L. Smith.

Olive Augusta Alger Cheney (1833-1916) was a well-known suffragist in Natick, and she became known statewide and nationwide as a champion of the temperance movement and women’s suffrage.

Chinese immigrants built community in Natick while facing local and national discrimination.

In 1857 Thoreau rode to Natick to talk with Austin Bacon about trees and other local botanical delights.

The Morse Institute Library opened in 1874 with 7,300 books, “to disseminate learning and intelligence” to the residents of Natick.

In October 1859, after abolitionist John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, a Natick Observer editorial declared, “We call him [John Brown] a hero…”

Natick town center almost leveled by fire in 1874.

Henry Wilson’s “ten-footer” shoe workshop, on the National Register of Historic Places.

Natick cobblers joined other Massachusetts shoemakers in leading the biggest pre-Civil War labor walkout in America.

Natick’s Union Ladder Company won the title in 1891.