Criterion A: Industry
Criterion C: Architecture
Period of Significance: 1922 - 1972
Local Level of Significance
The Maine Spinning Company Mill in Skowhegan, Maine is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places at the local level of significance. The four-story brick mill building was designed by the Lockwood, Greene & Co. engineering and architecture firm and constructed as a three-story mill between 1922-1923. One half of the building received an additional story in 1946. The period of significance begins in 1922, the year construction began on the building, and extends to 1972, fifty years before the present. The mill is significant under Criterion A: Industry, for its associations with the industrial development of the textile industry in Skowhegan and throughout Maine. The mill eventually closed due to competition from mills in the American south in the second half of the 20th century, a common pattern for Maine textile mills. The mill is also significant under Criterion C as a property which embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction. Lockwood-Greene was the leading mill engineering and design firm in the United States at the time they designed the Maine Spinning Company Mill. They utilized several innovative approaches to energy efficiency in the plant, which received attention in trade publications upon completion of the building. The mill also employed new technology in electrically powered equipment.