Hope Valley is a census-designated place and a village in the town of Hopkinton in Washington County, Rhode Island and had a population of 1,686 as of 2007. It is the largest village in Hopkinton and serves as the town's principal commercial center. This census-designated place covers 3.5 square miles of total area with 3.3 square miles of that being land, the other 0.2 square miles being water. Hope Valley's central portion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004 as the Hope Valley Historic District. As a visitor, you'd be able to find the Hope Valley Historic District in the Hope Valley, RI Yellow Pages or the Hope Valley, RI Business Directory.
The Hope Valley Historic District lays claim to 183 acres of land, which includes 134 contributing buildings and 3 other contributing structures. The earliest European-American settlement of Hope Valley came in 1770 when Hezekiah Carpenter arrived and dammed the Wood River, also building several water-powered mills in the process, hence giving the name of the settlement Carpenter's Mills. The village's name has conflicting origins, however, a town historian told the Providence Journal in 2008 that Gardner Nichols renamed the village from Carpenter's Mills to Hope Valley because "all of his hopes were centered" in the village.
Written by Lyndsey Morgan
