Leominster, MA

By the 1850s, paper mills, piano makers, and comb manufacturers had established factories along Leominster’s Monoosnoc Brook and the Nashua River. Later molding technology expanded the comb industry into plastics; Foster Grant sold 20 million pairs of plastic sunglasses in 1937. Pennacook and Nipmuc peoples had earlier lived along the Nashua, using its fertile soils to grow corn, beans, squash, and tobacco. A 2024 estimate put the Worcester County city’s population at 44,209. Its open lands include the 167-acre Doyle Community Park and Center and the 4,300-acre Leominster State Forest.