Glencoe - The Mill Buildings
Mill Design
Mill designers planned the brick and heavy timber mill to standards of the day. They employed the Italianate style popular for industrial architecture. Its ornate brickwork, arched windows, low roof, and prominate tower suited the functional needs of textile mills. Large windows planned in proportion to the width of the building shed natural light across the large work spaces. Sturdy construction supported the heavy machinery.
The mill followed "slow burn" guidelines set by Northern insurance companies. Features included thick, tapered brick walls; heavy wooden beam framing (to char rather than burn); thick plank floors; a low-pitched roof; and a separate stair tower to prevent fires from spreading between floors. The tower once held a 10,000-gallon water tank for a sprinkler system. In 1905, the Chicago Bridge and Iron Works built a supplementary tower with a 30,000-gallon tank.
The lift at the back, right corner of the mill lifted the laps of cotton prepared in the Picker House and Dye House up to the third floor of the mill. There the main jobs were carding and roving. Male workers lifted the heavy laps onto the machines that straightened, lengthened, and loosely twisted the cotton into strands (roving) of uniform weight and strength.
On the second floor, women and (until it was outlawed in the 20th century) children operated spinning and spooling machines, which turned the strands of "roving" into yarn and wrapped it onto spools or bobbins.
On the first floor, men and women weavers operated the looms, weaving the many colors of yarn from wooden bobbins into the trademark plaid and striped fabrics. Weaving was a high status, skilled job.
Marker is on Glencoe Street, on the left when traveling west.
Courtesy hmdb.org
