Historic Harrisville

Mission & Goals

Historic Harrisville, Inc. is a nonprofit public foundation which owns the core mill buildings within the historic textile mill village of Harrisville, New Hampshire. In 1971, townspeople and preservationists joined together to form HHI, whose goal was to preserve the integrity of the village, not as a museum but as a working community. Their preservation techniques were highly innovative:

• Adaptive reuse of the buildings
• A system of legal preservation covenants
• Historic district legislation
• Continuation of the strong textile tradition
• Sustain the vitality of the local economy
• Conservation of open space around the village
• Provide affordable housing

Renovating the old buildings and leasing them to businesses created a new economic base for the town and made the buildings self-supporting both as workspace and affordable housing.

In 1977, the National Park Service designated this two-acre historic district to be a National Historic Landmark.