Abandoned Massachusetts: Lost Treasures of the Bay State

From the Mayflower Pilgrims and the founding of Plymouth Colony to the high-tech firms and medical institutions surrounding Boston today, the last 400 years in Massachusetts has seen growth, prosperity, war, innovation, and decline.

Textiles, shoemaking, fishing, and transportation engineering brought riches to cities and small towns. Echoing the pulse of America, the only constant has been change. Many of the factories, theaters, churches, and schools constructed during Massachusetts’ heyday have succumbed to the elements or were destroyed by development.

Abandoned Massachusetts gives readers a glimpse into these once-thriving, now-forsaken buildings. Follow photographer David Whitemyer as he steps back in time to an ornate theater that opened on the same day the Titanic sank, to a factory that remained active from the Civil War through 2014, to America’s oldest publicly funded institution for people with developmental disabilities, and to dozens of other fascinating structures around the state.

Few of these architectural treasures will ever be restored, and most are gone forever.