Pawtuxet River Mills—Fires, Failures, Successes and Survival

16 Locations | Curated by Larry Manire

Drawing on the skills of Pawtucket iron-makers, financing from Providence and maritime merchants, and the introduction of the Arkwright system of carding and spinning by Samuel Slater in 1790 in Pawtucket, water-powered cotton mills flourished in Rhode Island especially on the Pawtuxet River in central Rhode Island.

Rhode Island had four textile mills by 1800 and by 1832, 119 cotton mills dotted the rural landscape.

In fact, at one point the Pawtuxet River was the most heavily industrialized area in the entire United States.


But water-powered textile mills were a very difficult, risky business.

It took a lot of courage and perseverance as a mill owner to find financing, build dams, raceways, and huge buildings, buy lots of machines, buy cotton from the south, produce and market a good product selection, deal with floods, droughts, strikes and weather, hire a lot of workers and provide them with housing, and the basics of a village (which came to be known as the “Rhode Island System”).



For about 150 years the cotton mills prospered but eventually failed or moved south for cheaper labor. The physical reminders of the industrial history of the Pawtuxet--its textile mills, machine shops, transportation structures, power canals and 167 dams still survive in substantial numbers on the river.



This 12.4 mile self-guided tour through Warwick, West Warwick, Coventry and Scituate will take you to 15 of the most significant, originally water-powered mill sites on the Pawtuxet.

Through their history these mills had 14 serious fires and over 85 changes of ownership.

Nine of the 15 are National Register properties or in such districts.

As we visit the mills we will learn about the hardships and struggles along with the successes to produce textiles at the dawn of American Industrialization.


Though some call the surviving mills “the standing corpses of industrialization,” the good news is that, through specialization and innovation, 70 textile firms employing 2,500 workers continue to thrive in Rhode Island even occupying one of the mills on this tour (Anthony)!


See the Rhode Island Textile Innovation Network (https://ritin.org/).

The “Pawtuxet,” named by the Native Americans as “the river of many falls,” had numerous cataracts due to the underlying hard crystalline rock of the area producing an average fall of 4.7 feet per mile and it never ran dry! It had everything needed for cotton production. By 1840 textile…
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In between a fire, seven new owners, labor strikes, and financial failures, this original home of the iconic “Fruit of the Loom” brand was very successful, but shut down in 1970 and is now just a nice place to live. The mill produced uniforms for Union soldiers during the American Civil War and by…
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Unfortunately the Natick Mill burned down in 1941 but we include this site on the tour because by 1883 the four original buildings had been joined into a single entity and further extended until it stretched 1,350 feet with a uniform height of six stories. It was Rhode Island's largest single mill…
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From “Kentucky Jeans” to “Fruit of the Loom” to the world’s most popular soaps and cosmetics, the “lower mill” at Riverpoint has seen a lot of fame! The Greene Manufacturing Company built a small spinning mill here on the South Branch just above its junction with the North Branch in 1812, but by…
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The mills here at Riverpoint, where the North and South Branches meet, experienced more fires, floods, construction episodes, strikes and changes of ownership than just about anywhere.  The textiles are long gone but now they house beautiful apartments and a health clinic, and have a marvelous…
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Few historic Rhode Island textile companies have survived to the present; but Arctic Mill was home for a number of years to global NATCO Home the 12th largest home textiles supplier.  It is still a family owned company which was founded four generations ago in Warwick by Arthur Galkin in 1917 whose…
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This Centreville Mill complex saw 18 new owners from 1794 to 2004 and an explosion and fire in 1871 but, at one time, it had 31,000 spindles and 700 broad looms!  At various times it manufactured print book cloth, fancy cassimeres, and braid.  Along with ring spinning, weaving, carding, spooling,…
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Crompton Mill, home of the “Velvet Mills,” the first U.S. company to manufacture velveteens and corduroys, by 1888 employed 600 and operated 40,000 spindles and 1,000 looms in buildings on the west and east side of the river.  Sadly the west building, built in 1882-85, burned in 1992 due to arson…
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This mill in the village first named Greeneville, then Taftville, and finally Quidnick after one of its reservoirs upstream, became the jewel of the Sprague textile empire, one of the most important firms in Rhode Island economic and industrial history.  But the Spragues lost it all in the…
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“A prettier mill you will not find.”  Built in 1873 the Italianate Anthony Mill has the distinction of being one of the best mills – architecturally speaking – in the entire state.  When it was built, it was the largest building in Rhode Island.  At night, the owners would have a light on in every…
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Built in 1809, Lippitt Mill is one of the most important mills in the state, and was one of the oldest American textile mills still in operation until, in 2011, when a bad main valve flooded the second floor with 300 gallons of water a minute, forcing the operations to move to Westerly. …
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Like every other mill you are visiting, Phenix Mill was “paternalistic” providing necessities such as housing, utilities, fuel, churches, civic organizations and education.  Shopping and professional services grew along with the village and Phenix “achieved an importance unrelated to its size”…
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Although the mill across the street is gone, what you see behind the Harris Mill Lofts sign is a classic example of the evolution of a mill over 150 years, starting small and adding on and on. Between the street and the river a two-story spinning mill was built in 1813.  Then Elisha Harris replaced…
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From cotton and bookcloth to fuel cells, films and printing media these two 150 year old mills are state-of-the-art! The Arkwright Company of Coventry, R.I. began in 1810 as a textile mill owned by James DeWolf. Two mill buildings were constructed, one of which burned down in 1851. With the…
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Rhode Island Governor Charles Jackson built the first cotton mill here in 1825.  By the late 1880s the mill was owned by Christopher Lippitt and Company and produced sheeting.  Fifty workers were employed and 120 broad looms were in operation. By 1901, the mill was owned by B. B. & R. Knight…
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This site was famous during the revolution for an iron forge called Hope Furnace (across the street from the mill) which declined after 1800 to be replaced by the Hope cotton mill.  The Hope Furnace was initiated by Governor Stephen Hopkins, and the Browns, the well-known wealthy merchants of…
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