For the first time in four years, Newton Upper Falls residents got to walk through their own neighborhood's past. The Upper Falls Neighborhood Area Council revived its "Walk Through Time" tour June 7, guiding visitors through 14 stops on a self-paced loop from Little Luke's Cafe to the Echo Bridge Mall.

At the old Gamewell Fire Alarm and Telegraph Company complex, Paula Kelleher told the crowd her uncle once worked there. She explained how Boston served as the test site for a new fire alarm system that used modified Morse code to pinpoint exactly where an emergency was happening. Built between 1889 and 1912, the complex is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

At Echo Bridge, council member Lee Fisher read from the structure's National Register nomination papers. Built in 1877 to carry the Sudbury Aqueduct over the Charles River, it was the second-longest masonry arch in the country when it was finished. Visitors could still see its original rusted railings, complete with a Boston Water Works rosette, standing next to newer black metal guardrails.

Homeowner Judy Malone Neville opened up her Victorian at 68 High St., which has passed through only one previous family. She said she "used to go around on trash night and pick up... old-fashioned banisters and light fixtures" to restore it herself. A few doors down, the owner at 44 High St. shared an even stranger backstory: the property started as a woodworking barn, became a photography studio, then turned into a makeshift bar — old beer bottles still turn up buried in the backyard.

Newton's first mill on the Charles River went up in Upper Falls in 1688, and by 1850 the village held 1,300 people — a quarter of Newton's entire population at the time. The neighborhood's historic district still holds more than 150 structures, many looking much like they did in the 1800s. Other stops on the tour included Mary Immaculate of Lourdes Church, founded in 1870 to serve Irish factory workers, and the Tzu Chi Foundation building, once home to Newton's first church.

The tour drew more than 300 people when it debuted in 2022; no attendance figure has been released for this year, and no date has been set for the next one.