The first two cotton mills were built in 1813. The last cotton mill was built in 1916. Fall River built over 100 cotton mills between those two dates. Initially, Fallriver [changed to Troy in 1804, then to Fall River in 1834 JP] was a wide spot beside a narrow, short river with poor land, rocky soil, off the main roads between Boston, Providence and New York. During that century, Fall River boomed using its water power to develop an expertise in cotton manufacturing. Then, when new steam engine technology weaned cotton mills away from water power, Fall River boomed building seventeen mills in 1871-73. The good times for the Fall River mills lasted half a century. Then, the times turned bad in the 1920s and worse in the 1930s with bankruptcy from 1931 to 1941.
Coming over the ridge in Somerset on Interstate 195, a slice of Fall River history is laid out along the eastern shore of the Taunton river. The Interstate now covers the channel of the Quequechan river. A hundred and fifty years ago the channel was covered by the first cotton mills. Driving under the City Hall, you emerge to view the mills built during the mill boom of 1871-1872 with the granite blocked, large windowed Durfee mills to your left and the granite Richard Borden mill to your right. More granite mills from the same era are visible on either side until you reach the narrows at the Watauppa Ponds. The fire of 1928 consumed the original mills exposing the water falls that powered the mills just below the old City Hall. The Quequechan river disappeared again into drains from Hartwell street to the Taunton river with the construction of the Interstate. The American Print Works is still on the shore to the right of the Braga bridge. "Below the Hill" lies behind the Print Works. Several brick mills relics of the 1870-1872 mill boom are further to the left of the bridge. Steep Brook, a rival village to Fall River in the 1810s, is further to the left up to the Freetown border.
Over 100 mills that produced cotton cloth were built over the century from 1820 to 1920. The cloth output from these massive granite structures made Fall River the largest producer of cotton cloth in the United States in the 1890s. The initial impetus came from the water power of the Quequechan river near the entrance to the Taunton river. Two cotton mills were built on the Quequechan river in 1813. From 1807-1815, the Non-intercourse Act, the Embargo and the War of 1812 cut of the supply of cotton cloth from England. Domestic entrepreneurs rushed to supply cloth for the home market. The available water power was exhausted by the 1840s.
All these mills were built before Edison developed the electric light or Tesla and Westinghouse worked the electrical distribution system. This lack meant that either gas or whale oil lamps lighted the mills. The windows were numerous large so that as much natural light as possible illuminated the mill interior. In many cases, skylight windows were set in the roof to increase the light. The low light levels contributed to vision problems for the operators. The open flames resulted in fires. Also, no night shifts were scheduled because of the fire hazard.
These mills were built before indoor plumbing was common. Outdoor mill privies hung out over the water. The Quequechan water was fouled by human and mill wastes. The problem developed gradually so that it took disease epidemics and high child mortality rates to high light and clean up the river and the city water supply.
People walked in the mill heyday. People walked to work, to shop for staples, to church, to amusements. Each mill had tenements clustered about it. In many cases, a mill built tenements at the same time that the mill was built to insure a supply of workers. Grocery stores, barber shops, bakeries, variety stores and taverns were located for every few blocks of tenements so that people had only a short distance to walk. Each nationality had a Catholic church in each mill village. The Globe, for example, had St. Patrick for the Irish, Blessed Sacrament for the French Canadien, St. Stanislaus for the Polish and Our Lady of Angels for the Portuguese.
Try and try again.
Motto of the City of Fall River [as I learned in grammar school JP]
But, the world had moved on in the 1920s. No amount of trying could compensate for the lower cost labor and the newer textile machinery of the American South. Some Fall River mills moved south; others closed. No amount of trying could compensate for the change in fashion to skimpier clothes that reduced cloth consumption. The result was a large pool of people in a one-industry city that had lost its one industry. The result was a city in which Howard Johnson's restaurant could not make a go of it because it was too upscale.
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