Manchester is a city in the United States, the largest city in the state of New Hampshire. Located on the banks of the Merrimack River. According to the 2000 census, the population was 107,219, according to preliminary data in 2010, the population is 109,565. The city's population was 115,644 as of the 2020 census.
Manchester's major cultural assets include the Palace Theatre, the
Currier Museum of Art, the New Hampshire Institute of Art, the
Franco-American Center, the Manchester Historic Association Millyard
Museum, the Massabesic Audubon Center, the Amoskeag Fishways Learning
and Visitors Center, the Lawrence L. Lee Scouting Museum and Max I.
Silber Library, and the SEE Science Center. The 1841 Valley Cemetery is
home to the city's most prominent personalities.
The Verizon
Wireless Arena is a multipurpose recreation center, from sports like ice
hockey and arena football to concerts and trade shows. It opened in
November 2001. There is also the John F. Kennedy Memorial Coliseum, a
minor meeting place in Manchester. It was completed in 1963, and hosts
the home games of the Manchester Central and Memorial High School hockey
teams, and is also home to the Southern New Hampshire Skating Club.
The city is located in southern New Hampshire in Hillsborough County on the Merrimack River.
The Pennacook Indian tribe named the region Amoskeag, meaning "good
place for fishing," in reference to Amoskeag Falls on the Merrimack
River. In 1722 John Goffe settled in the Cohas Brook region, where
several years earlier he had installed a dam and sawmill. The first
community took the name of Old Harry's Town. In 1735, the Province of
Massachusetts Bay gave the region Tyngstown to settlers from
Massachusetts. A decade or so after the separation of New Hampshire from
Massachusetts, Governor Benning Wentworth renamed the city Derryfield in
1751.
In 1807, Samuel Blodget built a canal and lock system that
allowed boats to traverse the Falls for the first time. He later built
an industrial settlement, "the Manchester of America", following in the
footsteps of the Industrial Revolution in Manchester, England, the first
industrialized city in the world. A short time later, in 1809, Benjamin
Prichard and company opened a cotton mill, powered by hydroelectric
power from waterfalls on the Merrimack River. Following Blodget's ideal,
Derryfield changed its name to the present Manchester in 1810, the year
in which the shed became part of the Amoskeag Cotton & Woolen
Manufacturing Company. It was subsequently sold in 1825 to a group of
entrepreneurs from Massachusetts, who opened two more offices in 1826.
In 1831 the three industrial sites merged into the Amoskeag
Manufacturing Company.
On the east coast, Amoskeag engineers and
architects designed an industrial village, completed in 1838 centered on
Elm Street. It officially became a city in 1846, and by then Manchester
was to become the world's first cotton-producing city. The shed called
"Mill No. 11", reached the dimensions of 270 m long by 31 wide,
containing about 4000 looms. Other typical processes of the city were
the shoe factories and the tobacco and paper processing sites. Amoskeag
later also specialized in metalworking, through foundries that produced
locomotives, in the section called Amoskeag Locomotive Works (later
Manchester Locomotive Works). The exponential growth of the industries
attracted many workers, who joined the local population, especially
French-speaking Canadians. Even today, many inhabitants are descended
from these workers. The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company ceased trading in
1935, although their buildings have since been used for other purposes.
Manchester is nicknamed "Queen City". An alternative nickname is
that of ManchVegas, as well as Funchester, ManchHattan, or more simply
Manch. In 1998 Manchester was chosen as 'Best Small City in the East' by
Money magazine.
In 1773, a good fifty years after the arrival of the first settlers, the town had 279 inhabitants. As of July 1, 2015, the city had a population of 110,229, according to an estimate by the United States Census Bureau; this means that the city's growth has fallen to a low level in recent decades. As in many other US states in the north with low immigration, the old age of the baby boomer generation is making itself felt.
The University of New Hampshire has a college in Manchester. In addition, on the northeastern outskirts is the private Southern New Hampshire University. A number of other universities and colleges offer a wide range of educational opportunities.
Manchester-Boston Regional Airport is a fast growing airport in
Manchester.
Interstate 93 connects the city to Boston,
Massachusetts.
Cultural landmarks include the historic Palace Theatre, the Currier Art Museum, the Art Institute of New Hampshire, the Franco-American Center, the Manchester Historical Association's Millyard Museum, the Massabesic Audubon Center, the Amoskeag Fishways Visitors and Education Center, the Lawrence L. Lee Scouting Museum and Max I. Silber Library, and the SEE Science Center. The Valley Cemetery, the resting place of many famous citizens since 1841, is an early example of landscape-style cemeteries.
Manchester is the only city in the state of New Hampshire to have
professional sports clubs. As such, the city has several large-scale
sports arenas:
the Verizon Wireless Arena is an ice hockey arena
occupied by the Manchester Monarchs, an ice hockey club playing in the
ECHL;
Northeast Delta Dental Stadium is a baseball stadium occupied
by the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, a minor baseball club playing in the
Eastern League.
Baseball
The history of professional baseball
in Manchester dates back to the late 19th century. New Hampshire had, at
the end of the 19th century, its own baseball league, the New Hampshire
State League, which had several clubs in the city during its history.
But it is above all in the New England League that many baseball clubs
in the city will succeed: the Manchester Reds in 1877, and, among the
best known, the Manchester Blue Sox from 1926 to 1930, the Giants, and
the Yankees. Gill Stadium, built in 1913, has hosted a number of these
clubs.
Since 2004 and the construction of the Merchantsauto.com
Stadium baseball stadium, the club has been home to the New Hampshire
Fisher Cats professional team, which plays at the Double-A level in the
Eastern League.