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is a city in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 17,214, at the 2000 census.
The area now known as Southbridge was initially inhabited by Native Americans of the Nipmuck and Mohegan tribes, with the dividing line for their territory as the Quinebaug River. Local inhabitants likely paid tribute to both tribes to be left in peace. As early as 1638, John Winthrop Jr. purchased a tract of land for mining lead in what is now Leadmine Road in Sturbridge (it was thought at the time that where there's lead, there should be silver nearby). Southbridge was first settled by Europeans in 1730 and it was incorporated in 1816; among the first settlers was Moses Marcy, who owned a home on the site of what is now Notre Dame church and who was elected to Congress, and the Dennison family. Water power from the Quinebaug River made Southbridge a good location for saw and grist mills in the 1700s and textile mills in the 1800s. After the American Civil War, many immigrants of Irish and French Canadian descent came to work and live there; by the 1930s they had been joined by Poles, Greeks, Italians, and others. Southbridge has a long history of manufacture of optical products. Under the leadership of the Wells family, The American Optical Company ("AO") became the world's largest manufacturer of ophthalmic products and at its height employed more than 6,000 people around the world. Many of its workers were exempted from the draft during World War II since they were doing vital defense work, including making Norden bombsights and even some work on the Atomic Bomb. By the early 1960s, the town had a movie theatre, an AM radio station (WESO), and an airport. New immigrants from Puerto Rico, Laos, and Vietnam began arriving in the 1970s and 1980s. The American Optical Company shut down in 1984, and the town is still struggling from the loss of these and other manufacturing jobs.