Central Falls City Hall Hours

Monday-Thursday: 8:30 am -4:30 pm

Friday: 8:30 am -1:30 pm

*Extended hours every 3rd Thursday of the month, 8:30 am - 7 pm

About:

The Village of Central Falls, one of the many quiet villages in the Town of Smithfield during the 18th and most of the 19th century, would soon see many changes. As of 1822, the sleepy village had only four buildings, including the first chocolate mill in the United States, and only sixty residents. Central Street had been laid out but the nearly empty street would remain nameless for many years; Broad Street, for its part, was then called the Valley Pike.

Soon, however, the population would begin to grow, fueled by the arrival of mills such as those of the Thurber, Horton & Wood (1824), Stafford Manufacturing Company (1825) and Pawtucket Hair-Cloth Company (1829). Within two generations, notable mills such as that of the United States Flax Manufacturing Company (1863), the Paper-Box Manufactory (1870),  the Central Falls Woollen Mill (1870) and the American Curled-Hair Company (1872) began to require thousands of employees to keep them running. Leather, cloth, lumber, picture frames, candy and much, much more were made in the city, which soon had brassworks, jewelry, tools, printshops and even a newspaper, the “Weekly Visitor.”