Bristol Arena, also called Elm Rink after the roller rink located there, was a boxing arena and public meeting place from approximately 1915 to 1945. The arena was one of the premier boxing venues in New England during the Depression and seated about 4,000 people.^[1] It was built on the former site of the New Bedford Polo Association (see the 1913 map) and burned down in 1945. The fire was reported by someone at the New Bedford Textile School across the street, in what is now the Quest Center, who saw smoke pouring from the building and called the fire department.^[2]

During the 1928 Textile Strike, members of the seven unions represented by the New Bedford Textile Council voted here to accept the settlement that ended the strike in a defeat for labor. A 5 percent wage cut was agreed to,^[3] and mills in surrounding communities began imposing or preparing similar cuts in the weeks that followed.^[4] Even this reduction was not enough to save the textile industry from the collapse accelerated by the Great Depression. During the decade that followed, more than half of New Bedford’s textile mills closed, and thousands of people lost their jobs.^[5] New Bedford’s population declined for many years, and the city still has fewer residents now than it did 100 years ago.^[6]