Fall River

Sister cities

• Povoação
• Vila Franca do Campo
• Ponta Delgada

History

At the time of the establishment of the Plymouth Colony in 1620, the area that would one day become Troy City was inhabited by the Pocasset Wampanoag tribe, affiliated with the Pokanoket Confederacy headquartered at Mount Hope in what is now Bristol, Rhode Island. The "falling" river that the city's name refers to is the Quequechan River (pronounced "quick-a-shan" by locals) a river which flows through the city before draining into the bay. Quequechan is a Wampanoag word believed to mean "falling river" or "leaping/falling waters." During the 1960s, Interstate 195 was constructed through the city along the length of the Quequechan River. The portion west of Plymouth Avenue was routed underground through a series of box culverts, while much of the eastern section "mill pond" was filled in for the highway embankment. In 1653, Freetown was settled at Assonet Bay by members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony as part of Freeman's Purchase, which included the northern part of what is now Fall River. In 1683, Freetown was incorporated as a town within the colony. The southern part of what is now Fall River was incorporated as the town of Tiverton as part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1694, a few years after the merger with Plymouth Colony. In 1746, in the settlement of a colonial boundary dispute between Rhode Island and Massachusetts, Tiverton was annexed to Rhode Island, along with Little Compton and what is now Newport County, Rhode Island. The boundary was then placed approximately at what is now Columbia Street. In 1703, Benjamin Church, a hero of King Philip's War established a saw mill, grist mill, and a fulling mill on the Quequechan River. In 1714, Church sold his land, along with the water rights to Richard Borden of Tiverton and his brother Joseph. This…

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and , or 17.68%, is water. Water power from the Quequechan River and natural granite helped form and shape Fall River into the city it is today. The Quequechan River once flowed through downtown unrestricted, providing water power for the mills and, in the last of its length, down a series of eight steep waterfalls falling into the Taunton River at the head of the deep Mount Hope Bay. Fall River and surrounding areas are located in the northeastern coastal forests, which make up the temperate broadleaf and mixed forest biome. Fall River was the only city on the East Coast of the United States to have had an exposed waterfall in part of its downtown area; it flowed less than into a sheltered harbor at the edge of downtown. Fall River has two large lakes (originally one lake) and a large portion of protected woodlands on the eastern part of the city, which is higher in elevation, with the Quequechan River draining out of the ponds and flowing through the heart of the city, emptying out an estimated per day into the deep Mount Hope Bay/Taunton River estuary in the western part of the city. The city lies on the eastern border of Mount Hope Bay, which begins at the mouth of the Taunton River starting south from the Charles M. Braga Jr. Memorial Bridge. The greater portion of the city is built on hillsides rising quite abruptly from the water's edge to a height of more than . From the summits of these hills, the terrain extends back in a comparatively level table-land, on which a large section of the city now stands. Two miles (3 km) eastward from the shore lies a chain of deep and narrow ponds, long, with an average width of three-quarters of a mile, and covering an area of…

Race & ethnicity

Largest nearby schools

• New Bedford High
  High · New Bedford · 2,898 students · 14.3:1 ratio
• B M C Durfee High
  High · Fall River · 2,460 students · 12.2:1 ratio
• Gr New Bedford Vocational Technical
  High · New Bedford · 2,095 students · 10.9:1 ratio
• Diman Regional Vocational Technical High
  High · Fall River · 1,412 students · 9.9:1 ratio
• Atlantis Charter School
  Other · Fall River · 1,283 students · 12.2:1 ratio
• Normandin Middle School
  Middle · New Bedford · 1,051 students · 12.7:1 ratio
• Alma del Mar Charter School
  Elementary · New Bedford · 1,038 students · 13.1:1 ratio
• Somerset Berkley Regional High School
  High · Somerset · 1,003 students · 13.2:1 ratio