Windsor Print Works

Housed in one of North Adams’ oldest and most architecturally impressive mills, hundreds of workers worked to dye, bleach, and print a variety of textiles as part of North Adams’ cotton manufacturing industry in the nineteenth century.

Located on Union Street, Windsor Print Works was a private commercial textile plant that was the first of its kind to settle in Western Massachusetts. Windsor Print Works had been in many different locations before settling into their location on Union Street. Windsor Prints was founded in 1828 by Caleb B. Turner. After the company failed, Joseph and James Marshall bought the company and with their purchase, Windsor Print Works expanded to the Union Street mill.

The construction of this mill started in 1872 and was completed by 1889. The building size was approximately 320,000 square ft. and was combined of over 4 buildings. The significance of the structure of the Windsor Mill connects to its rich history in North Adams. Although this city was full of mills during the industrial revolution, the Windsor Mill is one of the oldest and most architecturally pleasing buildings in North Adams.

To dig even further into the importance of the Windsor Print Works Mill, the city of North Adams in 1973 applied to have this mill become a historic place amongst the National Register of Historic Places. This title of being a part of the national registry holds a lot of importance to the people of North Adams.

The work done by Windsor Print Works was extremely lucrative, bringing in millions of dollars of revenue from the fabrics created. Among this textile company, dying, bleaching, and printing different clothing items was done by hundreds of workers everyday. With over 700 employees employed by Windsor Print Works during 1907, the company’s capitalization stock reached over $1,000,000. The production coming out of the Windsor Mill topped many of the surrounding mills within New England. Over 35 tons of clothes were being processed everyday either in a bleach or dye mixture during the peak of Windsor Prints success around the early 1900’s. Different types of clothing like flannels, dresses, shirts, and printed clothing pieces were processed every day through many different types of machinery installed by the owners of Windsor Print Works.

The importance of this information connects to the vast size of this company during the 1900s. The distribution level Windsor Print Works was able to provide to different states led this company to become a large distributor. Windsor Print Works brought a lot of attention to the city of North Adams. Along with other famous mills within the surrounding areas, many individuals decided to move to this area in order to work in the factories. The migration of people caused the population density of North Adams to skyrocket, making this small city very valuable.

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121 Union St, North Adams, MA 01247 ~ Private property.