Criterion A: Industry
Criterion C: Architecture
Period of Significance: 1832-1972
Local Level of Significance
The Biddeford/Saco Mills Historic District is significant for its association with development of the Biddeford/Saco region from a remote seventeenth-century maritime settlement to a major industrial center in the nineteenth century. Buildings that make up the district are representative of the industrial development that fueled growth and expansion of Biddeford and Saco in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Biddeford/Saco district is also important as a cohesive collection of well-preserved buildings that represent the development of industrial architecture during the same period. As noted above, this additional documentation and boundary increase to the National Register nomination is intended to extend the boundaries of the district to include Saco-Lowell Shops Buildings 24 and 30, which were the only buildings historically associated with the mill district that were left out of the original district boundary. A modern trash-to-steam plant that stood between the existing district and Buildings 24 and 30 at the time the district was created in 2008 has been removed, allowing the two historic buildings to visually tie into the district more readily. The existing National Register district nomination identified the pertinent areas of significance as Industry and Architecture. The Saco-Lowell Shops Buildings 24 and 30 contribute to the significance of the district in both areas. The original district nomination includes eight buildings constructed by the Saco Water Power Company, predecessor to the Saco-Lowell Shops. Building 30 was constructed as an addition to the company's largest machine shop, a mammoth five-story building extending over 1,000 feet from Elm Street all the way to the Saco River. The large addition was constructed at a time when the Saco-Lowell Shops were busy expanding production in an effort to capitalize on a sharp increase in both domestic and foreign cloth production. Building 30 is further significant as the only example of a multi-story reinforced concrete manufacturing loft in the district and the work of the well-known firm of Lockwood, Greene & Company. Building 24 was the last major mill building to be constructed in the district and is primarily associated with wartime production in the 1940s. The Saco-Lowell Shops manufactured a number of goods to support the war effort, predominantly related to weaponry and munitions. By 1942 contracts for ordinance items represented nearly half of Saco-Lowells total sales. Building 24 is also significant as a well-preserved example of a twentieth-century steel-frame production shed. The period of significance for the district is being extended to 1972 to meet the National Register fifty-year cut off. This cutoff date is consistent with manufacturing activity in the district, which continued at a reduced scale until 2004 under West Point Steven, Inc., successor to the Pepperell Manufacturing Company. Today small-scale manufacturing continues in a few scattered locations around the district.