Leicester began as a small Colonial settlement in the early 1700s and quickly blossomed into a flourishing farming community. Located among the headwaters of the Blackstone River, the numerous villages of Leicester prospered during the Industrial Revolution with gristmills, sawmills, and textile mills. By the 1880s, one-third of all hand and machine cards made in North America were produced in Leicester. After the deindustrialization of the twentieth century, the town began to return to its agricultural roots; today, for the most part, it appears largely rural once again. Leicester pays tribute to the industrial, yet rural, and independent, yet cooperative, spirit of this suburb of Worcester.