Weybosset Mills Complex Placed on National Register

PROVIDENCE — The Weybosset Mills complex, a 19th-century and early 20th-century textile mill in Olneyville, has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission has announced.

The register is the federal government’s list of properties whose historical and architectural significance makes them worthy of preservation. Listing on the register makes properties eligible for federal and state tax benefits for historical-rehabilitation projects but does not guarantee protection against demolition.

Weybosset Mills, on 3.7 acres at Oak and Troy streets, has been the subject of a city-approved condominium conversion project that has not moved forward.

Commission Chairman Frederick C. Williamson announced the register placement. The announcement said the complex “embodies the evolution of Rhode Island’s textile industry from cotton to wool and the well-preserved complex exhibits distinctive mid-19th- to early- 20th-century textile mill architecture.”

The complex consists of nine one- to five-story buildings constructed for cotton, worsted and woolen production between 1836 and 1937.

Most of the buildings have similar overhanging wood cornices with plank soffits and fascia, exposed beveled rafter tails and simple wood crown molding at the gutter line. The brick walls are lined with tall rectangular, flat or segmental arch windows with granite sills.

The buildings include three boiler houses, two production mills, a dye house, weaving room, office and a combination boiler/engine/ turbine house.

American Woolen Co. sold the buildings and land between 1931 and 1934. They were then used by Welsh Manufacturing Co., which made pens, pencils and eyeglasses; Roger Williams Brewing Co.; Providence Wool Combing Co.; and Nyman Manufacturing Co., a maker of paper cups.

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