Located on the Millers River in the hilly uplands of Massachusetts, Orange is a small mill town that has a very distinct look and feel to it - so much so, that it in 2018, it was featured as the eponymous location of the TV series “Castle Rock”, which was loosely based upon the stories of the writer Stephen King. From the old cemetery on the hill overlooking the town, to the quiet, abandoned spaces that are common even around the streets of the downtown area, Orange truly has the feel of a setting for one of King’s novels - perhaps the closest place in real-life, to his fictional town of Derry, Maine.
Orange MA was a farming community until the end of the 18th century when the damming of the Millers River on which the town is located, would spawn the growth of local industry. By the middle of the 19th century, Orange was firmly established as an industrial mill town, and by the end of the 19th century, the New Home sewing machine factory would be the largest employer in the town. By the beginning of the 20th century, Orange would also be home to the Grout Brothers company, a pioneering producer of steam-powered automobiles that would be the first factory-produced automobiles in the U.S.
Although the town would experience the familiar pattern of industrial and economic decline in the 20th century, it did not experience the accompanying population decline seen in other New England mill towns. Although the town’s population peaked around 2010, the current population is still much bigger than at any time in the past couple of hundred years. Inasmuch as Orange has managed to hold onto its population however, the town is replete with abandoned and truly derelict spaces, some of which feel genuinely dangerous. The shells of old mills and factories are often little more than isolated chimney stacks, and crumbling walls with nothing behind them to support them - places where a misstep as you scramble over the ruins, might bring down a few tons of bricks on your head.
When I visited Orange, I was also struck by how many of these wonderful old mill towns are located in picturesque rural areas of New England. Before steam and electricity, mills needed running water to power their machinery. Running water usually meant a river valley set in hilly country, through which the elevation changed rapidly enough to create a fast-flowing body of water whose energy could be tapped for mechanical work. It’s therefore not surprising to find these old mill towns located in such scenic landscapes, and the juxtaposition of New England’s natural beauty with these abandoned spaces only adds to their charm. A carpet of fall leaves blowing across a concrete floor with maple saplings forcing their way up through its mossy cracks. The soft, warm glow of the old red brick of a factory’s crumbling walls in the golden sun of a fall afternoon. The peaceful silence of these spaces whose former buzz now hangs in the air like an echo.
© Gordon Webster
Using the link below, you can browse a curated set of images from Orange MA in a gallery at my website, from which you can purchase photographic artwork in multiple formats. If this work resonates with you and you haven’t already done so, please consider subscribing to get future project updates.
