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Date: 3/7/2022
LUDLOW – On Feb. 28 Ludlow’s 250th Anniversary Committee hosted its kickoff town hall at Ludlow High School to raise awareness for the upcoming celebration, brainstorm ideas and to recruit more volunteers for the celebration.
To begin the town hall, Jim Martin, a former Ludlow High School teacher and moderator of the event, explained the purpose of the meeting and acknowledged that Feb. 28 also marked 273 years since Ludlow’s incorporation.
“As Linda [Collette] said, ‘We are here to plan the biggest event the town has seen since 1974 when the town celebrated its bicentennial,’” he said. “Our mission tonight is to get everyone involved in one or more of these activities and events that we hope will take place in 2024.”
Martin also recapped some of the events from the bicentennial celebration back in 1974 including the bicentennial ball, a variety show, a parade and crowning a Ms. Ludlow before giving way to
Committee Chair Linda Collette to introduce the members of the committee to the audience.
“We need a lot of help, this is our formal committee, but we will probably need more than 100 helpers to help us out with all of our subcommittees,” she said.
Collette then introduced state Rep. Jacob Oliveira who had a special announcement for the committee.
“I am pleased today to announce that we were able to secure $50,000 for the 250th celebration,” he said.
Oliveira elaborated that this funding came out of a combination of state and federal funding.
“This past fall with surplus dollars from the state budget from last year and some recovery dollars that came to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from federal sources, we were able to invest in some recovery programs but also to invest in things like tourism, arts and culture, and there is no better way to celebrate our culture here in Ludlow than to celebrate our history,” he said.
Because of the expenses required to properly celebrate the milestone, Oliveira said this allocation would alleviate the burden on residents.
“We are two years away but as anybody on the 250th Committee can tell you, each one of the events Mr. Martin talked about that we celebrated back in 1974 came at an enormous price and so to make sure that we do not have to rely on the local taxpayers here in Ludlow to pay for the bill for some of these celebratory activities, we used some of those surplus dollars to celebrate, in a proper way, the 250th anniversary of Ludlow,” he said.
With the introductory presentation and Oliveira’s monetary presentation to the committee out of the way, William Koscher, a former Ludlow High School teacher and local historian went through and discussed the history of Ludlow from the 1600s all the way up to the bicentennial celebration in 1974. He broke the history down into four separate periods, including when the town was inhabited by two different Native American tribes, around 1751 when the town was first founded by European settlers as a farming community up until about 1880, followed by the time of the Ludlow Manufacturing Associates from 1880 to 1950, before wrapping up with the time period between 1950 and 1974.
After Kosher’s lecture, Hubbard Memorial Library Director Patrick McGowan provided a slideshow presentation of some of the photos preserved at the library, all of which were originally glass plate negative photos which have been preserved digitally online through the state’s Digital Commonwealth program. All the photos are uploaded by the library using a digital single lens reflex camera. McGowan encouraged attendees to check out the rest of the collection at the library.
Following the presentation, attendees broke out into the cafeteria to brainstorm ideas for events during the celebration and to discuss volunteering with the committee for some of the events before adjourning for the evening.