Doing Business on the Mill Dam, circa 1907

This early twentieth-century photograph of local merchants on the north side of the Mill Dam captures several generations of Concord business people in one image. Lars Anderson stands at the far left, next to the telephone pole. Beside him is his employer at the time, Charles Towle, a partner in Towle & Kent and the man from whom he would eventually buy the business. To the right of Towle, N.A. Davis talks with Leslie Anderson, then fifteen years old. In the center is Frank Pierce, second generation owner of the shoe store next to Towle & Kent. A 1933 newspaper article referred to Pierce as the “Dean of the Milldam.” Others in the photograph are Daniel Potter, Michael Finigan, John Mara, Ernest Hinsman, and Ole Thorpe. Not visible in the photograph is the Chinese laundry located between Towle & Kent and Pierce’s store, with a second location in Concord Junction.

In addition to capturing a segment of Concord’s business community, this image illustrates in microcosm the diversity evident in Concord by the beginning of the twentieth century, as European and Asian immigrants blended with the descendents of Concord’s first settlers.