Rhode Island cities & towns
Rhode Island cities and towns
Deep-dive guides to the places behind the itinerary — the history, culture, landscape, and people of Rhode Island cities and towns, each linking the local venues worth a stop.
City guide · Newport County Newport: from colonial port to Gilded Age resort Newport sits at the southern tip of Aquidneck Island in Narragansett Bay, founded in 1639 by settlers who made liberty of conscience a founding principle. Over nearly four centuries it grew from a colonial merchant port deeply tied to the Atlantic slave trade, through Revolutionary occupation and a French alliance, into the leading summer resort of America's Gilded Age. Today it is a city of preserved mansions, a working harbor, a military and naval-education center, and a destination for sailing and music festivals. City guide · Blackstone Valley Pawtucket: where American industry began Pawtucket sits at the falls of the Blackstone River, where the water drops sharply enough to drive machinery. In the 1790s those falls powered Slater Mill, the first water-powered cotton-spinning mill in the United States, and the town grew into one of New England's early textile centers. The mill economy that started here also produced the country's first factory strike, in 1824, and the city today preserves that history through the surviving 1793 mill and the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park. City guide · Block Island Block Island: Manisses, New Shoreham, and a conserved island Block Island sits in the Atlantic about 13 miles south of the Rhode Island mainland. Known to its Indigenous Manissean inhabitants as Manisses, it was settled by the English in 1661 and incorporated as New Shoreham in 1672. After a Victorian-era run as a steamship resort, the island is now notable for the large share of its land held in conservation.