Ballouville Mill. Ballouville, Conn. 134.

Ballouville Mill. Ballouville, Conn. 134.

Image overlooking a mill complex or mill town, with early 19th-century stone factory buildings and auxilliary structures. This image is part of a series made by one of the three Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographers assigned to cover New England or upstate New York. The quest for images that would be saleable as postcards resulted in the documentation of small towns and small town life at the turn of the 20th century. As the photos were shot, the glass plates were promptly sent back to Belfast, Maine, and processed into postcards at the printing plant on High Street. The view is dominated by the 1860 Attawaugan Mill with its stair tower and water tower atop. At the left is the clapboard frame building whihc housed the mill community's Ballouville Store. [source: Clouette and Roth, "Connecticut: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites", Society for Industrial Archeology, 1981.] "The Attawaugan Manufacturing Company’s Ballouville Mill was originally constructed as a cotton mill by Leonard Ballou and his father-in-law Jabez Amesbury ca. 1825. Ballou and Jabez purchased the site and water privilege along the Five Mile River from Asa Alexander and operated the mill together until 1845 when Ballou became the sole owner. A small village, known as Ballouville, grew up around the mill and a number of the existing houses surrounding the plant were built by the company during this early period. In 1859, the Ballouville Mill was purchased by the Attawaugan Manufacturing Company, which was established that year by Norwich, Connecticut, residents H.B. Norton, and L. and W.L. Blackstone. The Attawaugan Manufacturing Company eventually acquired three mills along the Five Mile River, the other two being located in the villages of Pineville and Attawaugan to the north and south, respectively, of the Ballouville Mill. The firm grew into one of the largest manufacturers in town by the late-19th century, employing 410 workers and maintaining 525 looms during the 1870s, and numbering 500 employees and over 900 looms in 1893. By the 1920s, however, a general decline in the profitability of New England’s textile mills drove the Attawaugan Manufacturing Company towards liquidation. The firm eventually closed its doors and sold all of its Killingly properties in 1926. The Ballouville Mill, along with the Attawaugan Manufacturing Company’s other plants, were purchased by Boston-based Powdrell and Alexander, Inc., a holding company for the Paco Manufacturing Company, for $2,000,000. Powdrell and Alexander was established in Boston by J.W. Powdrell and J.S. Alexander in 1919, and by the end of the 1920s the firm operated six mills throughout Killingly producing a variety of curtains and other window treatments. The prominence of the firm resulted in the nickname, “Curtain Town U.S.A.”, being ascribed to Killingly during this period. In addition to the three mills, the purchase of the Attawaugan Manufacturing Company property included all of its water priviledges and reservoirs, 100 tenements, two clubhouses, two boarding houses, a church, and 600 acres of land. The total equipment transferred numbered 1,000 looms, 50,000 ring spindles, and 13,000 mule spindles. The transaction was completed in September 1926, and Powdrell and Alexander promised to have 700 employees back at work by November of that same year. Powdrell and Alexander continued to operate their Killingly curtain plants until 1950, when the firm shifted its focus to the manufacture of dress shirting. This lasted just two years, as in 1952 the company made the decision to move all of its production out of Killingly. The Ballouville Mill was sold off along with the other two former Attawaugan Manufacturing Company plants and some 1,000 employees were thrown out of work. The Ballouville Mill was eventually purchased by the R.W. Cramer Company, a manufacturer of industrial timing devices and small motors based in Centerbrook, Connecticut. R.W. Cramer retained the plant until 1958 and it subsequently passed to the Reid Manufacturing Company in 1959, and then the Hale Manufacturing Company in 1973. It is unclear when the latter vacated the property, however, it currently stands empty." [source: connecticutmills.org. Attawaugan Mfg.Co., Ballouville Mill/Making Places]