Durfee Mills is an historic
textile mill
Textile Manufacturing or Textile Engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods ...
complex located at 359-479 Pleasant Street in
Fall River, Massachusetts
Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The City of Fall River's population was 94,000 at the 2020 United States Census, making it the tenth-largest city in the state.
Located along the eastern shore of Mount H ...
, USA. Developed between 1866 and 1904, it was during its period of development the city's largest and architecturally finest mill complex.
Along with the adjacent
Union Mills, it is occupied by numerous retail businesses and a restaurant, and is known as the Durfee-Union Mills. The complex was listed on 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 ...
in 1983.
Description and history
The Durfee Mills are located in geographically central Fall River, overlooking the northern bank of the
Quequechan River
The Quequechan River is a river in Fall River, Massachusetts, that flows in a northwesterly direction from the northwest corner of the South Watuppa Pond through the heart of the city of Fall River and into the end of the Taunton River at Mou ...
, on a roughly triangular parcel bounded on the north by Pleasant Street and the southeast by Plymouth Avenue. The complex includes two main mill buildings and a large number of secondary buildings, all built out of native
Fall River granite. The main mills are similar 5-1/2 story structures, oriented north-south, with their main facades facing each other. Their prominent features are seven-story Italianate towers located at the center of the main facades. Most of the outbuildings are either one or two stories in height; the notable exception is the Number 3 Mill, a smaller 5-1/2 story building located at the corner of Pleasant and Plymouth. The building are noted for their high quality architecture, in particular the main office building.
Durfee Mills was organized in 1866 with $500,000 of capital, with B.M.C. Durfee as its principal stockholder and first president.
[
Mill No. 1 was built in 1866 for the manufacture of cotton cloth. The company was named in honor of Durfee's father Bradford, who is credited with starting Fall River's industrial complex and for building many of its early mills. The Durfee mill complex is the largest, and most complete to survive of the city's 19th-century mills. Mill No. 2 was added in 1871, and Mill No. 3 in 1881, raising the capacity to 109,360 spindles. It produced 23 million yards of cotton cloth annually. The company was liquidated in 1935. In 1968, the site was photographed by Jack E. Boucher as part of the ]Historic American Buildings Survey
Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) responsible for administering the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes ...
.
See also
*
*List of mills in Fall River, Massachusetts
The city of Fall River, Massachusetts once had over 120 cotton textile mills and was the leading cotton textile center in the United States during the late 19th century and early 20th century.
There are currently about 65 historic textile mills rem ...
References
{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Textile mills in Fall River, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Fall River, Massachusetts