Editing Fall River, Massachusetts (section)

====Expansion and growth====
[[File:Bordercity.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Border City Mill]]
In 1871 and 1872, a "most dramatic expansion" of the city occurred: 15 new corporations were founded, building 22 new mills throughout the city, while some of the older mills expanded. The city's population increased by 20,000 people during these two years, while overall mill capacity doubled to more than 1,000,000 spindles.

By 1876, the city had one-sixth of all New England cotton capacity and one-half of all print cloth production. The Spindle City, as it became known, was second in the world to only Manchester, England in terms of output.

To house the thousands of new workers—mostly [[Irish diaspora|Irish]] and [[French Canadian]] immigrants during these years—over 12,000 units of company housing were built. Unlike the well-spaced boardinghouses and tidy cottages of [[Rhode Island]], worker housing in Fall River consisted of thousands of wood-framed, multi-family tenements, usually three-floor "[[triple-decker]]s" with up to six apartments. Many more privately owned tenements supplemented the company housing.<ref>''The Run of the Mill'', Dunwell, Steve, 1978, p.105-110</ref>

During the 19th century, Fall River became famous for the granite rock on which much of the city is built. Several granite quarries operated during this time, the largest of which was the Beattie Granite Quarry, near what is now the corner of North Quarry and Locust Streets.<ref>[http://www.sailsinc.org/durfee/localrock.pdf 2003 "Local Rock Vital in City's Construction", ''Herald News'', February 26, 2003]</ref> Many of the mills in the city were built from this stone, and it was highly regarded as a building material for many public buildings and private homes alike. The [[Chateau-sur-Mer]] mansion in [[Newport, Rhode Island]] was constructed from [[Fall River granite]], known for its greyish-pink color.

While most of the mills "above the hill" were constructed from native Fall River granite, nearly all of their counterparts along the [[Taunton River]] and [[Mount Hope Bay]] were made of red brick due to the high costs and impracticality associated with transporting the rock through the city and down the hill. (One notable exception is the Sagamore Mills on North Main Street, which were constructed from similar rock quarried in Freetown and brought to the site by rail).