The Continental Mill Housing buildings are a pair of historic mill worker housing blocks at 66-82 Oxford Street in

Lewiston, Maine Lewiston (; ; officially the City of Lewiston, Maine) is List of cities in Maine, the second largest city in Maine and the most central city in Androscoggin County, Maine, Androscoggin County. The city lies halfway between Augusta, Maine, August ...

. The

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

/ Italianate housing units were built in 1866, and are all that remain of a large number of similar buildings that once lined Oxford Street. These two buildings were listed the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1979.

Description and history

The Continental Mill Housing blocks are located on the east side of Oxford Street on the west side of central Lewiston, facing the former Continental Mill complex, which lies between them and the

Androscoggin River The Androscoggin River (Abenaki: ''Aləssíkαntekʷ'') is a river in the U.S. states of Maine and New Hampshire, in northern New England. It is U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, ...

. The two buildings are nearly identical four-story brick structures, with shallow-pitch hip roofs with bracketed cornice, interior end chimneys, and windows with granite lintels and sills. The south building differs from the north one slightly, with a wooden cupola set near the front, and a colonnaded wooden porch on its north side. Each block is ten bays wide and six deep, with a pair of recessed entries. The site of Continental Mill originally had a small wooden mill, built in 1858, when it was purchased in 1866 by the Continental Company. It replaced this modest structure with a much larger complex, and required housing to accommodate the large influx of workers. To this end it built a series of these tenement houses across the canal and street from the mill, a practice typical of other mill owners in the area. At that time, the property fronted the canal, with a lawn and trees presenting a dignified atmosphere. These buildings were designed by Amos D. Lockwood and supervised by Albert H. Kelsey, agent of the company.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine Buildings and structures in Lewiston, Maine Houses in Lewiston, Maine Houses completed in 1866 Apartment buildings in Maine 1866 establishments in Maine National Register of Historic Places in Lewiston, Maine

Description and history

See also

References