The Telegraph's top headline announces the upcoming auction of Nashua Mills housing and property in May 1936.

Wow. This is one auction I wish I hadn’t missed.

I would have loved to have had the chance to shout out a couple of bids on, say, Nashua Mills manager Walt Whipple’s place, that handsome brick hilltop Beacon Street Colonial with a screened front porch to die for and even a modest carriage house for those rainy, windy days.

Then I would have hustled over to Hall Avenue, where I might have bid enough to take home – oh, wait, you can’t take home a home; where would you put it? – the stately, rambling New Englander that Nashua Mills office manager E. R. Swett and his family called home, and still do, because Mr. Swett was the high bidder on his very own home.

Then again, I might have been in the mood to scoop up a roomy, two-family place, such as the 2 1/2-story behemoth at the corner of High and Harrison streets known officially as 47-49 High St.

But it was the first on the auction block and the first to go, and I would have needed to get up earlier than George Velischka, the high bidder, to have a chance.

The Telegraph announced in one of its series of stories regarding the May 1936 auction of mill property that the city's former employment building was sold at the auction to the Good Cheer Society.

George lived at 41 School St., raising the possibility he was looking to establish the Velischka family compound right there a half-block off Main Street.

Even though I missed out there, I could have entertained the thought of picking up a nice little – well, not really little – apartment/office combo with an address of 2-4-6-8 Walnut St., but scrapped that idea when it dawned on me that every time I had to tell someone my address, the old cheerleading phrase “who do we appreciate?” would be stuck in my head for days.

Besides, I wouldn’t have felt right outbidding a caring, community-minded agency like the Good Cheer Society, which by day’s end, I later learned from a friend who didn’t miss the auction, had secured a new home with the kind of space they need.

It was then I found myself daydreaming about what might have been had I not missed this auction.

I could have stood with other bidders in front of a most unusual artifact of residential architecture stretched out along the west side of Walnut Street as far as the eye could see.

Dean Shalhoup

Longtime reporter, columnist and photographer, is back doing what he does best ñ chronicling the people and history of Nashua. Reaching 40 years with The Telegraph in September, Deanís insights have a large, appreciative following.

I knew right away I wouldn’t even have had to shout out a bid to enjoy this segment of the auction, but oh well. I had enough fun when I later read its address – 1-47 Walnut St. – and its description – 2 1/2-story, 24-family residence.

And I would also learn that the winning bid – at $20,000 the highest in the entire auction – was placed by a big-time Massachusetts-based real estate operator named Mark Hughes who, unlike yours truly, did not miss the auction.

This auction was indeed one for the books, and the main reason I missed it is it took place nearly 20 years before I made my grand entrance into this world.

Having stumbled upon clippings someone kept of the Telegraph’s coverage of this auction made for some fascinating reading, if for no other reason the sheer amount of residential property and future building lots that went under the auctioneer’s proverbial gavel.

And it all happened within a roughly 10-hour span on a late-May Saturday in 1936, the date that the Nashua Manufacturing Company and its Jackson Mills site on Canal Street picked to unload its immense housing stock to anyone who felt like placing a bid.

Such a mass selloff would seem to portend pending economic disaster, but as it turns out, getting out of the housing business was fairly common for such huge concerns as Nashua’s famed textile manufacturing industry.

It was encouraging to read in these old Telegraph clips that the mill execs didn’t seem interested in squeezing every dime out of prospective buyers.

“Every effort was made to make the terms of the sales as reasonable as possible,” the Telegraph reporter wrote. They required but a 10% down payment, ?(remove comma) and allowed up to 75% of the balance to “remain on mortgage.”

In a lot of cases, the mill workers themselves purchased homes, in many instances the same ones they’d been renting from the company for years.

That must have been worth a few extra bucks on the bids: no moving costs, no stressful packing up and unpacking somewhere else.

The Telegraph also ran a list of the sold properties and their buyers. Not surprisingly, the majority of the housing was within a stone’s throw, or at least easy walking distance, of the Millyard or the Jackson Mills, having been built by the mill owners in the first place to house their growing workforce.

Many of the original tenants were the so-called “mill girls,” adventurous young women mainly from Canada who wanted to trade family farm work for the “glamorous life” of the “big city” – and what they considered a handsome paycheck.

We baby boomers will remember, pre-urban renewal, the final years for many of these buildings, which by and large had become dilapidated and rife with code and safety violations.

On the other hand, there’s Grand Avenue and Perry Avenue, where literally every residence on the two streets went to the highest bidders that Saturday afternoon – and whose owners over the years made sure they remained in good condition.

For the record, the combined sales of the roughly 100 houses, tenements and lots auctioned that day came to $264,725, which today would get you one modest single-family house without a lot of frills – assuming, that is, you don’t miss your chance to place your bid.

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears weekly in The Sunday Telegraph. He may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

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