The cotton mill’s main building was a large, rectangular, red brick three-floor structure. In the main building, the bottom floor housed the raw cotton, the second floor was the weaving room, and the third floor was the spinning room. There was also storage and a machine shop in the main building. The administration building was attached to the southern front of the mill complex and the boiler room was in the back. The mill was built by a Rhode Island firm who brought Italian workers to the area to construct the building.
Tenement housing was constructed near the mill. The development was called Fort Dummer Heights. When the mill began a five room tenement was ten dollars a month. Each tenement contained a kitchen, dining room, parlor, three bedrooms, and a bathroom. The immigrant workers who moved into the housing were mostly French Canadian, Irish, Polish and German. Recruiters also traveled throughout New England and upstate New York to entice rural folks to adopt mill life. Here's what happened...
