The State Armory

The same architects as the castle’s stable, seven years on — and the one Lowell building that took the word “castle” literally, with towers and battlements. It is gone; the house on Fairmount Street is not.

Seven years after the Atherton stable, Merrill & Cutler built the state armory on Westford Street: a fortress in brick on a rough stone base, with round towers, battlements and a tall corner turret — the most literal castle of all the buildings on this page. In the late 1930s the Works Progress Administration carried out improvements to the buildings and grounds, sponsored by the Massachusetts National Guard. The armory was demolished in 1977, and the site at Westford and Grand Streets is now Armory Park.

Still to check

The name and dates of the armory in the state’s records (Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, 1890), and the reason for its demolition in 1977.
The full-size Library of Congress scan, to replace the small reference copy shown here.

Sources

The architect: Merrill & Cutler

Otis A. Merrill, born 1844; Arthur S. Cutler, born 1854

Otis Merrill was born at Hudson, New Hampshire, served through the Civil War in the Seventh New Hampshire Volunteers, and came to Lowell as a carpenter; self-taught as an architect, he practiced from 1873. Arthur Cutler, born in Andover and trained at an art school in Boston, was a draftsman in his office from 1876 and his partner from 1883 — the year the firm drew the stable for the Atherton estate on Fairmount Street.

For the next decade it was one of the busiest offices in Lowell: a church, the fire station, the armory and finally City Hall. The young Frederick Stickney began his career in Merrill’s office.

Sources: City of Lowell Historic Board, “Architects of Note”: Merrill and Cutler; Henry F. W. Little, The Seventh Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers (1896), pp. 562–564 (the list of the firm’s work outside Lowell).

In Lowell

Appleton Block, 1879 — 166 Central Street (Merrill alone)
Asa Russell house, 1879–80 — 331 Wilder Street (Merrill alone)
Old Ladies’ Home, 1881 — 520 Fletcher Street (Merrill alone)
Stable for A. T. Atherton — the carriage house, 1883 — 222 Fairmount Street (American Architect and Building News, June 16, 1883)
First Congregational Church, 1884 — 412 Merrimack Street
Central Fire Station, 1889 — Palmer Street
Arthur Cutler’s own house, 1889 — 17 Nicollet Street (most likely by Cutler or the firm)
The State Armory, 1890 — Westford Street (demolished 1977)
City Hall, 1893 — 375 Merrimack Street
Howe Building, 1894 — 10 Kearney Square

Elsewhere

High school — Concord, New Hampshire
Y.M.C.A. building — New Bedford, Massachusetts
Town hall — Wilton, New Hampshire