Boiler House Chimney at the former French Worsted Company Mill complex - Woonsocket, Rhode Island - Lonely Chimneys on Waymarking.com

The Boiler House Chimney is a remnant from the former French Worsted Company Mill on Hamlet Avenue in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. In operation from 1906 through 1969, the complex was converted to light manufacturing in the 1970s, added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 21, 2008, then demolished in 2012. (Source: Wikipedia, French Worsted Company Mill Historic District)

A triangular 6.7 acre site immediately west of the Blackstone River in city's Hamlet section was home to "the French Worsted Company Mill complex, a group of sixteen early 20th-century, one- to five-story, brick industrial buildings, and significant concrete remains of an abandoned rail siding...

Designed by Woonsocket architect Walter Fontaine and built by the Tiberghien textile interests of Turcoing, France, for spinning and finishing of worsted yarn for fine women’s and men’s wear, the earliest construction in 1906 consisted of Mill No. 1, with an attached boiler house, engine room, dynamo room, a carpenter/machine shop, and a detached, mansard-roofed office building. An elevated spur line from the neighboring NYNH&H tracks extended from a point south of the complex to a coal pile west of the first boiler house and Mill No. 1. This first phase of construction was followed in 1909 by the construction of Mill No. 2 (Building 7) a Sorting Building (Building 8) and, in 1911, a Wool Store House (Building 9)."

Boiler House Chimney (ca 1924, contributing)
153 Hamlet Avenue

French Worsted expanded the original 1906 Boiler House (Building 4) in the mid-1920s with the installation of three additional boilers and a new roughly 200’-high brick chimney north of the addition. The 1906 chimney located in the alley to the immediate south of the original wing was demolished between 1939 and 1950.

Source: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form; French Worsted Company Complex; pp 5, 15; January 2007

Though the site is not currently open to the public, visitors can get somewhat close to the chimney just a few yards to its north on Hamlet Avenue. The Rivers Edge Parking Area on Davison Avenue, which offers a more distant but good vantage point to view the chimney, is a short and flat walk to Hamlet Avenue. (Parking coordinates: N 42.001, W 71.4985)

Additional waypoints to this waymark: N 42° 00.064 W 071° 29.909 Is your description history or fantasy: Historically accurate Website for this waymark: [Web Link] Public or Private Propery: Private Rate this waymark: Not listed

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