Abandoned wool mill in Cleveland

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The Cleveland Worsted Mills Company complex survives with nearly every building intact as one of the larger older industrial complexes in Northeast Ohio. Since the buildings were built over a twenty-five-year period, they reflect the changes in American industrial architecture over that time both in terms of stylistic and structural elements. Even though all of the machinery has been removed from the complex, by their design and relationship to one another, the buildings. reflect the woolen industry at the turn of the century. This complex of buildings functioned as the main operation of an eleven-mill conglomerate with plants in Ohio, New York, and Rhode Island. By 1926 Cleveland Worsted Mills was the second largest national consolidation of worsted mills. Thus these buildings represent a major national center for worsted wool production.

In 1878 a small worsted mill was opened by Joseph Turner and Sons. In 1896 operations were moved to this site between the Erie Railroad and Broadway. In 1902 the company was reorganized under the new name of Cleveland Worsted Mills Company. Soon thereafter this factory was greatly enlarged by additions from 1904-1909 which increased its size more than sixfold. At the same time, other mill operations were acquired so that the Cleveland Worsted Mills became the main plant in an eleven-mill network. While some mills handled only certain operations, only the Cleveland complex performed every operation in the transformation of raw wool to worsted fabrics, with the exception of the dyeing process, which was carried out at their Ravenna, Ohio plant. At the height of operations in the 1920s 5,000 people were employed at all plants, 185,000 spindles and 1,760 broadlooms were in operation, and the Cleveland plant used 15 million pounds of wool per year. The company supplied the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marines with material for uniforms, It had a capital stock of $20 million. O.M. Stafford was serving as president and George H. Hodgson was vice-president and general manager. The company remained privately held until it ceased operations here in 1957. Perhaps to avoid the labor strife which was to eventually lead to the closing of this plant, the company erected sizeable facilities for employee recreation. A separate recreation and office building here featured a library, bowling alleys, dining room, and exercise room. The company also had a 60-room hotel erected at Lake Stafford, near the Ravenna dyeing plant which was used by employees of the company and their friends.

At the height of operations, wool would enter the wool storage building, a ten-story structure at the northwest corner of the complex. From there it would work its way through a vast six-story H-shaped building where it would be scoured, sorted, carded and combed; then drawn, twisted and spun to form yarn. The next step was the weaving, which was done in the buildings facing the railroad tracks. From there the fabric made its way to the mending, warp and picking operations before shipment. The firm supplied the New York garment industry as well as large Cleveland clothiers such as Richman Brothers and Joseph Feiss Company.

The buildings in the complex were designed largely by the George S. Rider Company and are of various styles and types of construction. The weaving buildings, dating from 1896, are Richardsonian Romanesque in style, featuring stair towers with pyramidal roofs and slit-like windows and a grand series of arches stretching along the long and impressive railroad facade. The 1906 H-shaped complex along Broadway relates stylistically to the older weaving buildings but is somewhat simpler, without the rounded windows or more elaborate stair towers. A major exception to this is the urbane and highly styled facades of these buildings along Broadway. These facades combine Neoclassical pilasters and cornices with massive Richardsonian segmental arches which span multi-story arcades. These facades have a smooth, molded appearance due to the use of masonry which is rounded at the edges. Sandstone is used with red brick to create rich polychrome facades which are sophisticated enough for use on a downtown office or commercial building. The 1896 and 1904-1909 buildings all have similar structures: wood planks are stacked vertically to form thick laminated wood floors which are supported by stout wood planks stacked together to form laminated beams. These beams are supported by wood (in the earliest 1896 buildings) or steel vertical columns. The 1920 wool storage building displays a newer technology: the use of reinforced concrete to create floors, walls and supporting columns and beams. Brick is used in a simple fashion to envelope the structure.

The Hunkin-Conkey Construction Company were the general contractors for this complex and may also have designed some of the buildings. This was a large Cleveland firm whose projects also included the Goodyear and B.F. Goodrich rubber plants in/Akron, the Detroit-Superior High-Level Bridge, the National Carbon Company plant and the Federal Building, all in Cleveland.

Building Description

This complex of over a dozen industrial buildings is located on the southeast side of Cleveland between Broadway and the Erie Railroad. It stands three blocks southeast of the intersection of Broadway and East 55^th Street, a major neighborhood commercial node that contains a number of historic commercial, institutional and religious buildings. Broadway is a major through street and contains a variety of commercial buildings and some other industrial structures. The mill buildings overlook a valley to the south on the other side of which is a residential neighborhood of turn-of-the-century houses. This is the largest industrial grouping in this area and is one of Cleveland's largest factory complexes.

These buildings are predominantly turn-of-the-century, with the oldest buildings dating from 1896 and the newest building from 1920. The structures are all close to one another, with the exception of the powerhouse, but visually and functionally they form five distinct groupings. Most of the buildings here are six stories in height. Two complexes are about three floors high and one building stands ten stories tall. The buildings are made of brick and are generally enlivened by projecting towers and multi-story arcades within which the windows are grouped. Buttresses are sometimes visually expressed in brick on the exterior walls creating an interesting vertical rhythm on otherwise long, plain elevations. The fronts of the three buildings which project out to Broadway are handsomely detailed in hard-fired brick with thin joints and an abundance of smooth-cut sandstone trim. They form dignified facades worthy of any commercial building. The railroad front of the weaving buildings also receives a special treatment which gives it a monumental character, with its windows grouped horizontally by differing arch treatments. Stylistically, the weaving buildings and the powerhouse display Richardsonian Romanesque influences by arched openings and accenting towers with pyramidal roofs. The other buildings are basically functional in style but display Richardsonian influence in their segmental-arched openings. All of the buildings have had every piece of wool manufacturing machinery removed so that the entire complex exists as a collection of large open warehouse structures with little noteworthy visual evidence of their original specialized function.

The weaving buildings are physically at the core of the complex and are also the oldest remaining buildings. The main portion dates from 1896 and bends in an undulating fashion along the Erie Railroad tracks. Stair towers at the ends of the building serve as visual accents. The principal facade of the weaving buildings is along the railroad tracks and it receives specialized treatment. Elaborate brickwork is used to accent the window openings, particularly those in the uppermost floor which are placed within massive round arches. A corbelled brick cornice accents the building. The structure of the weaving buildings is laminated plank on steel beams and exterior load-bearing walls. Wings of this structure extended it to the northwest in 1904 and 1907 and are of similar height and size to the original six-story building, but are simpler in external appearance and exhibit some minor variations in the internal structure. Resting atop the weaving buildings is a long narrow passageway that extends, by a bridge, from the mending buildings through to the wool storage building. This wood frame structure, now considerably deteriorated, is lighted by continuous rows of double-hung windows on either side. Its somewhat haphazard appearance suggests that this passage was an addition. These buildings were the functional core of the complex for it was in the weaving buildings that the large power-operated weaving machines made the wool yarn into the finished fabric. All other operations at this complex were secondary to this operation.

North of the weaving buildings is an H-shaped complex where the raw product, wool, was prepared for weaving. Beginning at the northwest tower, the wool was brought into the ten-story wool storage building. From there it entered the carding and wool scouring operations in the long six-story building which stands along Blanche Avenue. Then the wool passed into the southern half of this massive H-shaped complex where it was drawn, spun and twisted into worsted wool thread, at which point it was ready for use in the weaving buildings, which attach to its southwest point. The wool storage building is the tallest structure in the Cleveland Worsted Mills complex and dates from 1920, making it also the newest building. The construction of this building also differs from that of the other buildings. It is reinforced concrete, rather than the laminated plank on steel beams which is used generally throughout the complex. The wool storage building is faced with red brick and has a fairly plain facade, with an abundance of regularly-spaced rectangular window openings. The top floor is lighted by a large rooftop monitor which features a row of windows that face east and a sloping shed roof facing west. The wool storage building adjoins a structure dating from 1914. This six-story building is actually an addition to the 1906 buildings which face onto Broadway and it matches them in construction and scale. The most impressive architectural ensemble of this mill complex are these two facades along Broadway. They are virtually identical, measuring eighty and ninety feet across and separated by a gap equal to the facades of the buildings. When combined with the similarly-scaled facade of the office building, some three hundred feet southeast along Broadway, this becomes an impressive architectural grouping of what, for this neighborhood, are tall buildings. These two facades are grouped by arcades into three vertical divisions. Horizontally, the facades each have two major divisions. Massive stone piers separate two-story arcades at the base of each building. The segmental arches of these lower bays relate to the scale of the commercial street. Rounded corners and banded brick further enliven the facade, giving it a molded appearance. The upper four floors are united under large segmental arches which are separated by brick pilasters with rounded corners. A stone cornice crowns each building. The sides of each building are articulated by vertical buttresses with rounded corners which are more closely spaced than on the facades, containing one window within each arch, which terminates at the sixth floor with a segmental arch. Atop these H-shaped buildings are rooftop monitors, with the glazed areas facing east and sloping roofs to the west. The interiors are well-lit by the windows and have numerous regularly-spaced steel columns.

The office building at the southeastern end and its adjacent picking, mending, and warp operations form a third distinct grouping. Facing onto Broadway is the employee recreation and office building which formed the headquarters of the complex. Dating from 1918 it is similar in scale to the other mill buildings but is simpler, featuring a monochromatic brick facade that is more somber than its older counterparts to the northwest. This front building has a simple plan; the lower floors have a central corridor with offices on each side and the upper floors are entirely open. In addition to the corporate offices, this building also housed an extensive series of employee recreational facilities such as a gymnasium. However, no direct evidence of these uses survives and the lower floors have been substantially altered with new inexpensively paneled walls and dropped ceilings. Adjoining the office building at its rear is the 1900 mending and warp operations building. It is connected to the main weaving buildings by a bridge. This older building matches the weaving buildings in architecture. Adjoining it at the south is the picking and mending building. It dates from 1913 but closely relates stylistically to the 1900 weaving buildings. It is accented by two stair towers at each end which feature corbelled brickwork and slit-like window openings. This building rises to six stories but steps back on the upper floors to form a distinctive profile.

In the center of the complex is a building that housed the laboratory and design departments, the employee entrance, and garage space. Dating from 1915 it is much lower in height than the surrounding buildings and is physically separated from them. It is a plain building, having a few features which give it a vaguely Neoclassical look such as a small cornice. This building is at present deteriorated, suffering from roof leakage. It features large open spaces and is well lighted by windows. The employee entrance is framed in stone and is so marked by lettering carved in stone.

The fifth and final group of buildings is the powerhouse. Dating from 1909 it is marked by gable roofs, accenting towers and intricate brickwork on its end facades. It is physically separated from the main complex by the Erie Railroad tracks, lying about 150 feet west of the mill complex. A tunnel made of brick extends beneath the railroad tracks to connect the basement level of the weaving building to the powerhouse. Because of its different function, the powerhouse has a different internal plan from the other buildings. It features a series of large open spaces which are about three stories in height and which are free of internal columns, having large metal roof trusses overhead. All of the boiler equipment has been removed, leaving a series of vast empty spaces. The powerhouse also stands at a lower elevation, in a valley alongside a small stream. Northwest of the powerhouse is a large round metal water tank, used to supply the old boilers. Because this building has not been used since the mills closed in 1957, it has not received constant attention and has deteriorated. As its name denotes, this building was used to power the machinery and to provide heat for the Cleveland Worsted Mills complex. Because of the potential fire danger, it was physically isolated from the main complex of buildings.