Rhode Tour
A project by the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, the Rhode Island Historical Society and the Rhode Island Council for the HumanitiesRhode Tour is a statewide mobile historical smartphone application. Captivating places, intriguing people, and exciting events fill Rhode Island's history. Rhode Tour offers a new way to interact with these untold tales of the state's past. Using stories, sounds, and images, history comes alive on Rhode Tour.
Featured Story
Adamsville Hill: A Rum Runner's Hideout
“Young man, if you don’t get out you’re going to end up with a little round hole in the middle of your forehead.”
The words were polite and calm, but ominous, spoken to a youthful group of…
Shepard Company Building
Few places in downtown evoke such fond memories like the iconic Shepard Company Department Store, a fixture of the 19th and 20th-century Providence shopping experience. Built in the 1870s, Shepard’s…
The Home of Sissieretta Jones
If anyone deserves a blockbuster biopic on this tour, it is Sissieretta Jones. Jones, a soprano, studied voice at the Providence Academy of Music, the New England Conservatory and the Boston…
Explore RI
Early Creatives: Culture, Entrepreneurs, and the Arts on Benefit Street
Little Compton Commons
Revolutionary War Fortifications of Rhode Island
Second Shift: New Bedford's Industrial and Immigrant Heritage
East Side of Providence
Orphanages, Asylums, and Almshouses
Downtown Providence
Random Stories
Del's
“Stop at the sign of the lemon!” declares the Del’s soft frozen lemonade slogan. The Del’s symbol, a frost-covered lemon, can be seen everywhere during summer in the Ocean State.
Made from…
Spiritual Cleansing: Religion at Mashapaug Pond
In the summers, Providence residents waded into Mashapaug Pond to get clean – or, more precisely, for spiritual cleansing. "The choir would sing and the Word was preached before the candidate…
Bicycle Racing at the Pawtucket Cotton Centenary
Despite the rain, a troupe of bicyclists and mustached men costumed as knights, clowns, pages, and a prince paraded through the streets of Pawtucket. Thousands of people from Rhode Island and the…
The Old Stone Bridge
A tall man in a long, dark coat and a broad-brimmed hat walked the 2,000 feet across Stone Bridge from the Portsmouth shore to the Tiverton side, where a toll keeper waited to collect his fare. The…