It is historically significant as the site of the first wood-based newsprint paper mill in the United States, and has a well-preserved collection of late 18th and early 19th-century architecture.

In the 18th century, this section of brook was developed industrially, and by the 1820s had at least seven mills, a foundry, distillery, and a thriving village center.

It is about 170 acres (69 ha) in size, with 53 historically significant buildings, and the ruins of upward of twenty water-based mills.

Among ts noteworthy historic buildings are the Interlaken Congregational Church (1824), the Citizens Hall (1870), and the Bancroft-Curtisville Hotel, once the location of the St. Helen's Home.

St. Helen's Home was sponsored by the New York Tribune's Fresh Air Fund in the opening decades of the twentieth century.