Editing Fitchburg, Massachusetts (section)

==Economy==
[[File:Main Street, Looking East, Fitchburg, MA.jpg|thumb|''Main Street'', looking east, in {{circa|1912}}]]

Throughout the early twentieth century, Fitchburg was known for its paper industry, which occupied the banks of the [[Nashua River]] and employed a large segment of the European immigrant population. It has been noted by many residents in Fitchburg that the Nashua River would be dyed the color the paper mills had been coloring the paper that day.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Eggleston|first1=Peter J.|title=Improving Public Access to the Nashua River in Lancaster, MA|date=2013|page=14|url=https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-050313-123430/unrestricted/IQP_Report.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202083543/https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-050313-123430/unrestricted/IQP_Report.pdf |archive-date=2017-02-02 |url-status=live|access-date=January 23, 2017}}</ref>
* Founded in 1939, the [[Wachusett Potato Chip Company]] purchased the former County Jail buildings and grounds in the 1940s and has operated as a manufacturing and distributing facility for snack products since that time. It was purchased by UTZ in 2011 and still makes chips for local distribution using the Wachusett name.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.telegram.com/article/20111019/NEWS/111019529/0|title=Wachusett Potato Chip Co. sold|first=Aaron Nicodemus Telegram & Gazette|last=Staff}}</ref>
* Two truck manufacturing firms, the Wachusett Truck Company and the New England Truck Company, operated in Fitchburg during the early twentieth century.
* Simonds International, Saw manufacturer founded in Fitchburg in 1832 and still operating on Intervale Road.
* The [[Iver Johnson]] Arms and Cycle Works made motorcycles for a short time, in addition to their primary products, firearms and bicycles.
* [[Assumption Life]], a large [[financial services]] company, was founded in Fitchburg in 1903 before moving to [[Moncton]], [[New Brunswick]].
* When completed in June 2014 [[Great Wolf Lodge New England]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.greatwolf.com/newengland/waterpark|title=Indoor Water Park New England Massachusetts|website=www.greatwolf.com}}</ref> will have spent over 70 million dollars in renovations to former Holiday Inn/Coco Key Water Resort There will be over 400 new permanent jobs created from this project.

===Fitchburg Central Steam Plant===

The Fitchburg Central Steam Plant (locally known by its nickname: the PLT) was built in 1928 to provide steam and electricity to the many local paper mills.  As the paper mills were abandoned or improved the Central Steam Plant fell into disuse and was abandoned.  In 2008, the [[United States Environmental Protection Agency|EPA]] designated the Central Steam Plant a [[brownfield]] site due to contamination of the site soil and groundwater with metals and inorganic contaminants.  The EPA provided the City of Fitchburg $50,500 in grant money<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cfpub.epa.gov/bf_factsheets/gfs/index.cfm?xpg_id=378&display_type=HTML |title=Brownfields Grant Fact Sheet: Fitchburg, MA &#124; Brownfields and Land Revitalization &#124; US EPA |publisher=Cfpub.epa.gov |access-date=February 1, 2012}}</ref> to help clean up hazardous substances on the site.

Cleanup<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ci.fitchburg.ma.us/news/20100315-Community%20Relations%20Plan.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=July 13, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111005172647/http://www.ci.fitchburg.ma.us/news/20100315-Community%20Relations%20Plan.pdf |archive-date=October 5, 2011 }}</ref> of the Central Steam Plant started in 2010 and is ongoing as of July 2011. As of December 2015, the Fitchburg Central Steam Plant has been razed. The last structure to fall was its massive smokestack.