Kay Woolen Mill
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The Kay Woolen Mill (also: Thomas Kay Woolen Mill ) is a listed ( National Register of Historic Places ) weaving complex ( wool mill ) in Salem , Oregon at 1313 Mill St SE . The facility is now part of the Willamette Heritage Center , which was created in 2010 from a merger of the Mission Mill Museum Association, founded in 1964, and the Marion County Historical Society, founded in 1950 .
history
In 1889 the weaver Thomas Lister Kay (1837–1900) founded the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill Company in Salem. He immigrated from England in 1863 and moved to Salem in 1888. Before that he had worked in a wool mill in Brownsville , Oregon . The first mill building, built by Kay in Salem from 1889 and opened on March 13, 1890, was made of wood. 50 workers were employed. It burned down on November 18, 1895 and was replaced the following year by a two-story stone building, which was raised by another two floors in 1937. Until the mill was closed in 1959, the descendants of the founder ran the factory: Thomas Benjamin Kay (son), Ercel Kay (grandson) and Thomas Kay Jr. (great-grandson). After the business was closed due to the lack of competitiveness of the outdated machine park and the emergence of textiles made of man-made fibers , the mill became the Mission Mill Museum .
Kay's eldest daughter, Fannie, who was trained in the family business, married the merchant CP Bishop. The couple founded in also located in Oregon Pendleton the still existing Pendleton Woolen Mills .
today
The Museum Mill is the only wool mill museum west of the state of Missouri and has one of only a few remaining and still functional water-powered turbines in the northwestern United States. The exhibition contains machines and devices for industrial wool processing from the 19th and 20th centuries. In addition, the lives of the owners and workers of the factory are traced.
Individual evidence
Web links
Coordinates: 44 ° 56 '6 " N , 123 ° 1' 37" W.