Waterfalls and rapids that could be harnessed for power determined the location of many colonial settlements along the Charles River. On the Newton side at the Lower Falls, the earliest such use dates back to 1704 when John Hubbard and Caleb Church built a dam to generate power for an ironworks. As Newton was an agricultural community, tools and other farm implements were in constant demand. The settlement prospered. By the close of the 18th century, several dam sites had been developed, and the road to the river, later known as Washington Street, was dotted with the residences of ten families.

During the early years of the 19th century, the production of paper emerged as the village’s leading industry. By 1816, six paper mills (four of which were on the Newton side of the Charles River) shared the water power of this upper dam, while three others were situated at the lower Washington Street dam. Their burgeoning success firmly established Lower Falls as a thriving industrial village. The population, wholly dependent upon the mills, steadily increased to 405 inhabitants and 33 dwellings in 1823. With stagecoach service to and from Boston three times a week, the village flourished with taverns, shops, and a church, as well as Newton’s first fire company, the Cataract (waterfall) No. 1 to protect its profitable assets. 

Residential development came to a near standstill during the closing decades of the 19th century as local industry was unable to compete with the larger papermaking centers in western Massachusetts and Maine. Indeed, change occurred only on a very small scale until after World War II. The construction of Route 128 during the 1950s and the urban renewal programs of the 1970s had devastating effects upon the village’s built environment. Irreplaceable historic landmarks, mill owners’ and laborers’ houses, a church, and schools were demolished, so that only remnants of this once prosperous mill village remain on Washington Street.