Lonaconing III

Inside the mill equipment had withstood a lot of wind and rain coming in the windows. The paint was peeling, but not too badly; only the top floor had bad roof damage. Someone had been keeping watch, though, because fairly new bracing beams kept the roof from collapsing. Spools about five inches high, some metal but mostly wood, were stacked everywhere. The place still looked surprisingly orderly.

The spinning equipment looked in decent shape for having been walked away from over half a century ago. Calendars on every floor told us it was 1957. A sign on one wall advised workers to “call at the office of the social security board to inquire about your old-age insurance benefits” when they reached 65. The politeness and complete sentences of the language alone summon another era.

I was surprised at how small the mill really was. A sign outside said it was the only silk mill in the US, but we couldn’t tell from the equipment exactly what they manufactured out of silk. Silk thread – lots of spools. Silk fabric – unlikely, no fabric bolts anywhere. Silk ribbons – could be, the spools were large. We found a large stash of labels announcing the fabric “Rayon,” but didn’t know what they were intended for. And we found what we assumed to be raw silk – locks looking like blonde wigs, one was even braided.

In the basement workshop brightly colored powders had eaten through their large rectangular tins. Dye, we guessed. Confusingly we noticed a few magazines and newspapers from the 1960s, not a clue how they came to be in the building. It felt terribly sad that they place and everything in it was being allowed to rot. The equipment was still in good shape, with hundreds, maybe thousands, of pristine spools and spindles that would have fetched a fortune at antiques markets.

We went to work taking photos, amazed again and again at what we were seeing. We chased the light across the building, a continual timing challenge, until we began to lose light even on the top floor.