Leominster, Massachusetts: Magnetic Hill - Gravity Hill (Gone)

The spot is no more! In the early 1950s I lived in the old, formerly white farm house that sits on the knoll directly above the attraction. It was known to us as Upside-Down Hill. The Worcester Telegram once ran a feature on it. Folks would come from all over to marvel as they obediently rolled up the grade. Truth is, they really didn't. It was all an optical illusion caused by the adjacent landscape. It became such a traffic nuisance that the Road Department regraded the hill and surroundings enough so that the illusion no longer was. I don't have a date for the road work.

I lived on the edge of Lowe Street where the magnetic hill was. I lived at 329 Pleasant which is at the corner of Lowe St. Many times people stopped at my house and asked where this spot was. I could show anyone anytime. My dad told me after the road was black topped the effect wasn't as obvious. It was a slight incline and did work.

According to newspaper reports in the 1930s, a hill on Lowe Street allegedly contained magnetic or magical properties that would allow cars, bikes, and baby carriages to roll up hill, defying physics. The legend was repeated in Weird New England.

DON'T BOTHER GOING! Lowe street is about half a mile long, and quite hilly. We stopped at every single minor incline, and the car only rolled in the expected direction. We asked a few neighbors, one of whom seemed annoyed at the neighborhood intrusion, and another who said that, despite 21 years, he had no idea where it was exactly. Whether there was ever any truth to this once, it's long gone.

We have an old note on file that there is/was a "gravity hill" in Leominster, where cars roll uphill. Sounds like it's not marked as such with signs, or publicized...

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