Editing Littleton, Massachusetts (section)

===20th century===

Littleton continued to grow through the twentieth century. Prior to [[World War I]], the mill at the common moved into the manufacturing of military webbing to supply the US Armed Forces. The advent of the war drew more people to town to work in the mill. Young men from Littleton also left to serve during the war. Upon their return, they founded the two veterans' posts, American Legion Post 249 and VFW Post 6556.

With the advent of the automobile, Littleton saw two more expansions of agri-business. The existing dairy farms grew larger and became commercial. Cloverdale Farm/Dell Dale Farm, on Mannion Place off Great Road edging up to the shores of Lake Nagog, became a well-known local dairy operating until 1986, first by John Mannion and then Thomas and William Byrne from Hopedale. Herbert Whitcomb also ran a commercial dairy, which he sold in 1942 to J. Fred Herpy, a dairyman who had moved to Littleton from [[Rome, New York]]. Herpy relocated the pasteurizing business to Great Road in 1952. Business was good in the post-war years, and Herpy's Dairy thrived.

On the site of the Great Road plant, Herpy built two large swimming pools, and added a bathhouse, grill and ice cream stand. The pools provided swimming lessons to the residents of Littleton and surrounding towns. By the last year the pools were open, 1968, over a thousand children learned to swim at Herpy's. It closed a year later, in response to Littleton's expansion of alcohol sales.

Like many towns along the state roads radiating from Boston, the advent of motor transport saw the arrival of [[Market garden|truck farms]] which sprang up along Route 119/2A. These were market gardens that were operated on a large scale to supply produce for Haymarket in Boston. While earlier commercial market gardens had sprung up along the railways, motor transport allowed the formation of produce wholesalers in outlying cities such as Fitchburg and Lowell which signed contracts with local farmers to provide goods on a daily basis for sale in Haymarket. The trucks would leave the yards and drive down the state roads buying produce from the farms for resale in town. Almost all truck farms kept a portion of their produce for sale at their roadside stands. The farms in Littleton were operated by a mix of older Yankee residents and newer Irish, Italian, Quebecois, and Greek families who had bought the farms as a commercial venture. One can see what most of Route 2A looked like running in through Acton, Concord, Lexington, and Arlington during the first two-thirds of the century by looking at present day, Route 119 moving northwest from Beaver Brook Road.

Arthur Rowse bought Standard Vinegar Co. in [[Somerville, Massachusetts|Somerville]], in 1865 in 1900, changed the name to New England Vinegar Works in 1907. In 1919, he added the [[Veryfine]] brand name for pasteurized apple juice. He moved the company to Littleton, Massachusetts, in 1930 to be closer to Massachusetts' apple orchards, setting up his plant at the Depot.  While in Somerville, Arthur Rowse, known for integrity and honesty, had refused to do business with bootleggers in a state where [[Prohibition]] was overwhelmingly unpopular. He continued his refusal after moving to Littleton.

Due to the Yankee character of the town, it was notably dry during Prohibition. Although Prohibition was repealed in 1933, Littleton did not permit the sale of alcohol again until 1960, and then in just two locations, the Johnson's store at the Depot and the Nashoba Package store at Donelan's shopping center. Only in the late 1980s, with the building of DEC's King Street facility, was a bar allowed to open in town (this later became Ken's American Cafe, which closed in December 2008. It was followed by what is now the Chip Shot on Ayer Road). For years, residents could go to establishments just over the town line that served alcohol, in the surrounding Acton, Westford, Groton, Ayer, and Boxborough.

Littleton has remained a predominantly Yankee town, with the bulk of the population belonging to the Congregational Church of Littleton, The First Baptist Church, and First Church Unitarian churches. In the post-[[World War II]] era, Roman Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Quebec, Canada, and Italy moved into Middlesex County and Littleton. The Roman Catholic parish of St. Anne's was established in 1947 and is currently the largest congregation in town. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints established a chapel in 1979. In 1956, the Church of Christ was built on Harwood Avenue. It disbanded in 1985 due to the closing of Ft. Devens and the resultant dwindling membership.

Many of the early families are represented by descendants in the town to the present day: Blanchard, Bulkeley, Crane, Hartwell, Hathaway, Kimball, and Whitcomb. The neighborhoods around Mill Pond (also known as Lake Warren): Long Lake, Forge Village, and Spectacle Pond, include numerous summer cottages or "camps" that have been converted into year-round residences. Many ethnic Irish, Italian, Québécois, and Finnish families moved here in the 1950s and 1960s in a kind of suburbanization after leaving their more dense, first and second-generation neighborhoods in Arlington, East Boston, Cambridge, Lowell, and Somerville.

Due to its location between [[Fort Devens, Massachusetts|Fort Devens]] and [[Hanscom Air Force Base|Hanscom AFB]], Littleton has been a popular location for military retirees from the 1960s to the present day.

Author [[John Hanson Mitchell]] wrote a book titled ''[[Ceremonial Time]]'' (1984), which details a history of fifteen thousand years over one square mile located within the town.

The arrival of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC, later part of [[Hewlett-Packard]]) in the 1970s connected the town to other businesses in the Boston-area high-tech corridor. Digital built a very large facility on King Street near the Common, as well as offices on Porter Road and Foster Street.