Building Description Paris Woolen Mill - Stayton Woolen Mill, Stayton Oregon
The Stayton Woolen Mill of 1905 and auxiliary buildings added at later dates occupy approximately one-and-one-third acres at the east end of Florence Street, on the north bank of the West Stayton Ditch, a power canal which was developed in the 1890s to divert water from the North Santiam River to serve various mills located along Water Street in Stayton, Oregon. The main mill building and a series of additions and sheds are oriented on a north-south axis fronting Florence Street, a 40-foot right of way. The warehouse and shipping room and adjoining office building are located on the north side of the right of way, facing south. Surrounding land use is mixed industrial and residential. Behind the complex, south of the power canal, the open land is in agricultural use.
The 2½ story main mill building of post and beam construction, is rectangular in plan and measures 69 x 120 feet. The foundation and ground story flooring, originally wood, were replaced approximately 20 years ago by a layer of gravel overlaid by concrete. Conventional stud walls are finished with horizontal tongue and groove boards inside and are clad with Douglas fir shiplap siding on the exterior. The double-pitched roof with its two roof-ridge monitors is presently covered with composition material. Eaves are unenclosed. The light roof trusses are a modified sag rod type having suspension rods added at a later date. Posts are spaced on 20-foot centers, and ceiling clearance on first and second stories is 10 feet. Fenestration is generous, consisting of simple wood-framed industrial-size stacked wood sash with six over six lights in either end elevation and six-light oblong sash in side elevations.
Between 1906 and 1908, a 25 x 125-foot single-story lean-to addition of matching construction was added on the west side to expand the weave room.
About 1912, a finish room and spinning annex, also of matching construction and measuring 91 x 100 feet, was added to the east side. The north, or front 35 feet of the annex is two stories in height; the remainder is single story. The fabric finishing department is contained in the ground story. Spinning machines are on the second story. The annex also contains an 80-foot square office and a 100-foot square laboratory space partitioned by 2 x 4 stud walls. The stairway to the upper story is of the typical unfinished Douglas fir milled construction found throughout the interior.
About 1916, an 81-foot, single story extension was added to the east end of the annex to house the workshop, boiler room and dye house. The area is covered with longitudinal gable roofs of varying length, depending upon the length of the sections separated by 2 x 4 stud walls. The dye house at the easternmost end has two roof ridge monitors.
Detached from these additions, immediately to the east of the dye house, is a 45 x 25 foot, single-story, windowless picker house of clay tile blocks which was added in the 1930s. The picking machines, which reclaimed wool from scrap woolen goods through a shredding process, are no longer used in the mill operation.
Detached from the picker house, on the easternmost end of the property, is a single-story, gable-roofed carbonizer building measuring 35 x 40 feet. It, too, was constructed in the 1930s of tile block, except for the wood frame roof with its roof-ridge monitor. Although no longer used, the building contains the remains of a German-manufactured gas carbonizer which was once used to remove extraneous vegetable fibers from wool scrap. The carbonizer, employing either hydrochloric or sulphuric acid, was one of the few of its kind in the United States. It was used under Paris' management to remove latex (rubber) from sweater and wool swimming trunks clips from the Jantzen Knitting Mills in Portland. After carbonizing, the waste wool was reworked into robes and blankets.
The warehouse and shipping room on the opposite side of Florence Street is an L-shaped building with two longitudinal gables which measure 105 x 110 feet. Across the front is a covered loading dock. The interior is divided into a single-story raw wool warehouse on the east and, on the west, a two-story section for storage of finished goods on the upper level and a ground story shipping room. Construction details are similar to those of the basic complex. The east side elevation of the single-story warehouse portion is windowless and has a large sliding door on rollers.
Attached to the west side of the warehouse is a 35 x 18-foot, single-story, gable-roofed office building of matching construction and double-hung windows with one over one lights in the wood sash. The building was modified in 1980 by removal of a portion which extended into the public right of way and by addition of a 10 x 12-foot west wing which serves as the private office of the mill manager. The remainder of the office building houses the receptionist-bookkeeper and a records storage area.
Local wool growers deliver sheared fleece, or raw wool to the warehouse in sacks weighing up to 300 pounds. The sacks are weighed on the warehouse platform scales and the grower is paid in cash at the prevailing wool price. The fleece is sent to Portland on Paris Woolen Mills trucks for washing and scouring, which removes the lanolin, dirt and manure. The process results in an approximate weight shrink of 50 percent.
From the warehouse, the scoured wool is moved with hand trucks across the street to the dye room. Here the wool is placed in huge round stainless teel kettles with the dye water and heated by steam for a certain length of time. After dyeing, the wool is dried in a drying machine at the dye room and then moved with a hand truck via an elevator to the card room storage bins on the third level of the main building. Here the wool is oiled with a special oil to facilitate the carding process. Sometimes, blends of different kinds of wool or wool and synthetics are mixed according to ratios desired by the customers. Also, several colors can be blended for heather yarns. Next, the wool is blown through steel piping to the carding machines in the card room on the second level of the main building. The carding process passes the wool through a system of rollers covered with wire teeth, which forms fibers into a thin web. Carding "blends" and straightens the fibers and removes some of the natural vegetable matter. The thin web that results from carding is then divided into narrow strips which are rubbed together to form the "roving." Roving is the process of getting the carded wool onto spools.
The spools of roving are then moved with hand carts to the south end of the second floor, which is the spinning room. Here the spools are placed on the spinning frame racks and the strands threaded down through twister tubes and finally through the travelers which sail around and wrap the bobbins at high speed. This process, which twists the yarn to give it strength, is called "spinning."
The yarn-filled bobbins are then carted to the weaving room on the first floor of the main building. Half the yarn is transferred to large spools, which are called beams. The beams are placed on the looms and the yarn is drawn through harness frames to form the "warp" (lengthwise yarn). The other part of the wool is transferred from the spinning frame to small bobbins that fit into the shuttles of the loom for weaving. The yarn is woven across the "warp" and is called "filling." The looms are automatic and are mechanically programmed to select and weave the correct colors of filling yarn to create the desired pattern.
If the woven fabric is to be a fringed blanket, it is next run through the fringe twisting machine in the finish room of the first floor. The cloth is then closely inspected for defects in the weaving. This inspection is done by hand by pulling the fabric over high horizontal rods so that it is displayed vertically for inspection. This process uses the natural light from the many windows on the south end of the finish room.
The fabric is woven wider than desired in the final product. To shrink it to size, it is put through the fulling process, in which it is soaked in hot water for a controlled length of time. The fabric is then dried in the dryer adjacent to the dye room and brought back to the front portion of the finish room for final finishing. Robes and blankets are napped (the fabric is fluffed with wire toothed rollers). Other cloth is sheared in a machine which clips off the fuzzy part of the nap. The fabric is then rolled and carried back across the street to the shipping room.
In the shipping room the fabric is cut and bindings sewn on as required. Labels are attached, and the fabric is packaged and boxed for shipping. The boxed products are stored in the warehouse above the shipping room. A small retail store adjoins the shipping room.
