Pontiac Mills History - Birthplace of Fruit of the Loom

Pontiac Mills, a large former cotton mill in Warwick, RI, is mostly known for a few key factoids: Being the birthplace of the Fruit of the Loom brand, being a major producer of Union uniforms for the Civil War, and having its bell tower dedicated by President Lincoln upon its grand opening in 1863. But where do all these pieces fit together, and where did it all begin?

1800 Arnold’s Bridge

The history of this area prior to the mill era ranges from foggy to nonexistent, but it’s clear that the Pawtuxet River was always the main character in this village. Prior to the industrial revolution, this woodsy, sparsely-inhabited area was known as Papepieset to the Native Americans, translated by English settlers as The Great Weir, due to the presence of a weir (long, shallow dam) used for fishing.

History comes into clearer focus around 1800, when Benjamin Arnold purchased the land and renamed it Arnold’s Bridge after the new bridge across the weir.

1831 map of Warwick, RI showing the location of Arnold's Factory — 1831 map of Warwick showing the location of Arnold’s Bridge and ”Arnold’s Factory” where Pontiac Mills now sits

The first mill on this site was built by Benjamin’s sons Horatio and Dutee Arnold in 1810, variously called “Arnold’s Mill” or “Arnold’s Factory” on local maps. Though it was a modest wooden single-story grist and sawmill powered by a single waterwheel, its existence would determine the use of the land for centuries to come.

1830 Clarksville

Arnold’s Mill was bought at auction by John Hopkins Clarke in 1830. Clarke was the first to meaningfully develop the village around the mill and attract more workers to live there, and after two successful years reviving the business he tore down Arnold’s Mill and built a newer, larger two-story mill out of stone, renaming the village Clarksville. In 1840, one hiring decision would change the course of the mill’s history forever.

Clarke hired a young man named Robert Knight as a clerk at the new Company Store (a one-stop shop to sell cotton products directly to the townspeople along with other household goods.) Knight had worked at Coventry Cotton Mill from ages 8 to 17 and planned to run a mill of his own one day. His wish came true in 1846, when Clarke was elected to the U.S. Senate, and Knight leapt at the opportunity to lease the mill in his absence. Within four years he had grown the business so successfully that in 1850 Clarke agreed to sell the mill to him outright.

When his co-investor left to pursue other opportunities, Robert approached his brother Benjamin Brayton Knight to go into business together. In 1852, the B. B. & R. Knight Co. was born, and in 1856 they began selling the mill’s finished goods under the brand name Fruit of the Loom after collaborating with a client whose daughter had been painting fruit labels on the fabric she purchased.

1863 The New Mill

After the most successful decade of ownership Clarke’s mill had yet seen, the Knight Brothers decided to demolish the old mill and build a newer, larger, state-of-the-art mill with the most cutting-edge steam power technology available at the time. That year, the huge brick building now known as Building 1 was erected, powered by a Corliss stationary steam engine. At the time, it was three stories and 200 feet long.

1863 illustration of Pontiac Mills in Warwick, RI — 1863 illustration of Pontiac Mills

Steam power

Pontiac was an early adopter of steam power in an era when some mills still relied on waterwheels. Huge steam engines, almost like a locomotive mounted firmly to the ground, provided vastly more power than the natural flow of the river and allowed for more machinery, larger buildings, and higher output.

The boiler house, easily identifiable by its tall smokestack, sent pressurized steam to the engine room which was usually located within the mill itself. The engine was hooked up to a series of belts which drove long axles mounted on the ceilings, running the length of the building. The machines were driven by belts running down from these axles.

Like everything else in the mill, tending to the steam engine was a dangerous job. Huge moving parts frequently claimed fingers and limbs, and one time when the engine was run at an unsafe speed the cast-iron flywheel shattered and sent metal pieces flying through the air. Miraculously, nobody was killed.

The Bleachery

The mill was unique in having its own bleachery on-site for bleaching, dyeing, and finishing fabrics, a process that was usually contracted out to dedicated third-party bleacheries due to the specialized equipment and training involved. This was part of the Knights’ pursuit of vertical integration, or complete self-suffiency by completing every step in-house without any need for a supply chain. The Knights bought the local farms that grew their cotton, and rapidly expanded the mill complex to include everything from the treating and cleaning of raw cotton to the production of finished clothing.

Interior of Pontiac Mills Building 3 circa 1870 — Interior of Building 3 circa 1870, precise year and photographer unknown

1870 Rapid expansion

The new mill was printing money. The Fruit of the Loom brand was a runaway success, and in 1871 became one of America’s first registered trademarks. Combined with the recent windfall from their Civil War uniform contract, the Knights were suddenly bringing in enormous revenue—and they were determined to invest every cent back into the mill and the community.

From this point onward, extensions and additions to the mill appeared at a never-before-seen pace.

1879 illustration of Pontiac Mills in Warwick, RI — Illustration of Pontiac Mills, J. D. Van Slyck, 1879

New construction

The slashing and weaving machinery was moved into the newly constructed Building 2, leaving all of Building 1 for carding and spinning.
The old wooden bleachery burned down in 1870, and that year was replaced by a much larger stone and brick bleachery known as Building 3.
Around the same time, Building 1 gained a fourth floor and an eastern extension bringing it to 300 feet long.
In 1874 their first dedicated product storehouse, Building S1, was built.
Extensions were built at the rear of Building 3 containing specialized bleaching kiers called Buildings 4 and 5.
By the 1880s, a fleet of new small, skinny buildings (including Building 6) appeared in the narrow space along the riverfront housing water pumps, filtration systems, and singeing lines to burn fraying edges off finished fabric.
New carpentry and machine shops called Buildings 7 and 8 were built behind Building 2 to allow quicker in-house machine repair and construction. Building 8 utilized the walls of the original 1810 waterwheel house.
The old boiler house was demolished and larger boilers installed in a new building called Building 9.
More product storehouses including Building 10 were built across the river, where the Greenwich Village Apartments now stand.
A new perpendicular wing (or “ell”) called Building 11 was built off of Building 1.

The Knights’ building spree wasn’t just contained to the mill, either—they believed that investing in their community was beneficial on all sides. By 1888 they had personally paid for the construction of the Pontiac Grammar School, the Pontiac Library, and the All Saints’ Episcopal Church in the village. They worked with the Hartford Railroad Company to approve plans for a branch of the railway directly into Pontiac Village and then paid for its construction, as well as an early telegraph line from the village into Providence.

Workers pose in front of the new train tracks in front of Building 3 circa 1900

1889 lithograph of Pontiac Mills in Warwick, RI — 1889 lithograph showing Pontiac Mills from the rear

An architectural curiosity

The Knights’ interest in architecture lent the mill a curious and very unique mix of architectural styles as it expanded. Building 1’s traditional red-brick construction was soon followed by several stucco buildings with fanciful brick detailing. Bewilderingly, the stucco on some buildings was artificially scored to resemble ashlar. Yet others replicated classical Italian architecture with Church-like arched windows and roof corbels. The narrow stucco buildings along the riverfront were gradually conjoined with each other and developed into a “village” reminiscent of historic Italian streets, and came to be known by villagers as “The Mews” (a term for tight European streets lined by carriage houses.)

Pontiac Mills Building 3 — Building 3’s stucco construction with fanciful brick detailing was highly unusual for a New England mill building.

The winding corridor between the narrow stucco buildings of Pontiac Mills, known as The Mews — The winding corridor between narrow stucco buildings by the river came to be known as “The Mews”

The mill entered the 20th century on top of the world. Compared to the 5000-spindle capacity of the old Clarke’s Mill, an 1898 report puts Pontiac at 27,792 spindles, employing 543 workers. The complex was constantly upgraded to keep up with the latest in manufacturing technology, and transitioned from oil lighting to electric lighting in 1908 with the installation of a 240-amp dynamo.

The success of Pontiac Mills allowed the Knights to build and purchase other Rhode Island mills including the Royal, Natick, Arctic, Lippitt, and Valley Queen mills, each of which was upgraded and doubled or tripled in size shortly afterward.

In 1912, B. B. & R. Knight Co. was the largest cotton manufacturer in the world.

Dangerous jobs

Even at the height of its success, it’s important to remember there was no job in the mill without its share of danger.

Spinning mules had hundred-foot-long cast-iron carriages that ran back and forth on rails on the floor, winding thousands of threads onto thousands of bobbins at once. Stepping into the path of the mule could be a death sentence, but was frequently done when a tangle or loose bobbin was noticed, since stopping and restarting the entire machine was a lengthy process.
Power looms wove thousands of threads into fine cloth at lightning speed. One wrong movement could get a finger or hand instantly mangled or sliced off by the weaving shuttles which ran back and forth several times per second.
In all mill buildings, hundred-degree air filled with fine cotton dust led to frequent outbreaks of “brown lung”, or byssinosis, as well as other long-term skin, eye, and respiratory disorders.
In the bleachery, fabric was finished by soaking and curing in pressurized vats of hazardous chemicals like bleach, hydrogen peroxide, sulfuric acid, and industrial dyes. Workers fell into vats while trying to refill or adjust levels, and were injured in explosions when vats catastrophically failed. These chemicals also frequently leaked into the Pawtuxet, destroying town water filters and resulting in undrinkable water for town residents.

1920 New Owners & Deadly Riots

Following the deaths of Benjamin and Robert Knight at the ripe old ages of 85 and 86 respectively, the B. B. & R Knight Co. was passed down to their sons Webster and Prescott, and after a few more successful years the family decided to retire from the textile business once and for all.

In September 1920 the Knight family completed one of the largest sales the business world had ever seen, selling Pontiac Mills, several nearby mills, and the rights to the “Fruit of the Loom” and “B. B. & R. Knight” names for a total of $20 million (over $320 million in today’s dollars). The buyer was Consolidated Textile Company, a New York company that existed solely to buy up existing mills to add to their portfolio, forming a near-monopoly across the east coast.

It was almost like the departure of the Knights put a curse on the mill. Profit reserves from the World War I manufacturing boom ran dry, sales took a nosedive as the textile market was flooded with lower-priced imports, the village struggled to recover from the Spanish Flu epidemic, and worker morale plummeted as the locally beloved Knight family were replaced with nameless, faceless businessmen shipped in from New York with no connection to the Pontiac community and no mill experience themselves. To add insult to injury, they decided to keep using the “B. B. & R. Knight” name to manage the new Knight mills.

Machine gun mounted to the roof of Natick Mills circa 1922 — Machine guns were mounted on the roofs of Pontiac Mills and Natick Mills - 1922

In 1921, less than a year into ownership, the new owners slashed wages by 22%, then the next year slashed wages by another 20% and mandated a 54-hour work week across the board. Over 2,000 workers from Pontiac Mills and other nearby Consolidated mills went on strike, and eventually turned to rioting after Consolidated refused to budge and began evicting families from their mill-owned worker housing in Pontiac village. As workers began severely damaging office buildings in the mills, Rhode Island governor Emory San Souci called in the National Guard to maintain order, and machine guns were mounted to the roofs of Pontiac Mills and nearby Natick Mills. Two people were gunned down in the mill riots on February 21, 1922. The historic strike lasted eight months. By September, the mills had reopened and many workers returned, but it was crystal clear that nothing would ever be the same.

In 1924 the new owners reported an unprecedented loss of $4 million in a single year, and in 1925 were crippled by a second strike after they announced a desperate plan to double the number of looms while keeping the same number of weavers. (The weavers were eventually allowed to return to work with the existing number of looms—but only by cutting their wages by yet another 10%.) That year, the company filed for bankruptcy and sold several of its mills. Pontiac survived the selloff thanks to one unique specialty that had made it a valuable piece of the puzzle from the very beginning: the bleachery. The mill’s spinning and weaving equipment was removed and sold, and the entire complex was converted to operate solely in bleaching, dyeing, and finishing fabric and clothing.

The “Pontiac Finishing Plant”, as it came to be known after removal of the spinning and weaving equipment, struggled to stay afloat during the Great Depression. By 1932 it had already experienced at least one more prolonged shutdown due to “insufficient orders to warrant capacity production”. Later that year the mill reopened with 200 workers, compared to 543 workers in 1898.

The company continued to hemmorhage money, and in 1935 the newly reorganized B. B. & R Knight Corporation filed for bankruptcy… again.

Newspaper photograph of Pontiac Mills circa 1924

1935 Role Reversal

This time, the reorganization of the bankrupt company left it unrecognizably changed. It was determined that their most valuable asset was not any of their mills, but rather the Fruit of the Loom brand, which had become a household name. The company finally retired the Knight name and renamed itself Fruit of the Loom Corporation, and began licensing the Fruit of the Loom brand name to other manufacturers to bring in additional income. Where Pontiac Mills once owned Fruit of the Loom, Fruit of the Loom now owned Pontiac Mills.

The company sold off all of their remaining mills from the former Knight empire… except one. Pontiac’s bleaching, dyeing, and finishing operations were deemed just valuable enough to save it once more. To justify holding onto the aging mill where the brand had been born, new machinery for printing patterns and graphics onto fabric was installed, and the plant began doing business under various names including Pontiac Print Works and Pontiac Finishing Division.

New construction

The nonstop expansion and evolution that defined the complex in the Knight era had come to a halt by 1930. The last significant updates to the complex were made around this time.

Building 11 was more than doubled in length from 90 feet to 200 feet—so long that one corner of it overshoots the river bank and rests on a pillar. At the same time, its original three floors were converted to two taller, more spacious floors that better align with the taller floor height of Building 1. The original three rows of window arches are still visible in the brickwork, stopping halfway down the building’s length where the newer extension begins. (photo)
The storage complex of Buildings 28-32 underwent a series of additions and expansions of such haphazard and non-uniform sizes, shapes, and materials that the official renovation plan presented to the state for tax credits said the buildings “defy description” and that “it is difficult to identify where one building ends and the other begins in either plan or elevation.” (Apple Maps aerial photo)
A “new power plant” was announced in 1948. It is likely this was a new dynamo or generator attached to the old boilers to complete the shift to fully electric machinery, replacing older machinery directly driven by the steam engine via axles and belts.

World War II

The removal of their weaving equipment, combined with the struggling New England textile industry as a whole, meant World War II did not bring Pontiac the manufacturing boom they had experienced with during the Civil War and World War I. Instead, the mill was chronically understaffed as many workers left for the war, and few wanted to return to their dangerous and underpaid bleachery jobs if they were lucky enough to come home. Cheaper imported textiles from overseas were saturating the market, and the financially struggling village of Pontiac hesitantly agreed to be absorbed into the City of Warwick.

1961 Dead Mill Walking

Pontiac Mills’ last years in business were not pretty: it was hemmorhaging money, falling apart, and being dragged into a bizarre series of lawsuits.

Rapid decay

Through a combination of poor management and sheer age, the complex was beginning to decay. Many buildings were now passing the 100-year-old mark, and astonishingly, some were allowed to collapse and remain in a state of ruin even before the mill ceased operation. The original Building 4 (a large building behind Building 3, different from today’s Building 4) fell into disrepair and experienced multiple ceiling collapses. Building 8, a carpentry and machine shop which used part of the original 1810 walls of the old waterwheel, partially collapsed—but the new owners contructed a cheap, wooden makeshift office in its ruins.

Building 8 office before renovation — 1960s-70s offices in the ruins of Building 8 before renovation

A pawn in a game of stock fraud

In an attempt to finally achieve financial stability, Fruit of the Loom Corporation started a bidding war by offering itself up to a variety of wealthy potential buyers, and eventually sealed a deal with Bates Manufacturing Company. However, it was later revealed that Bates had convinced their shareholders to approve the purchase at one price, while higher-ups secretly traded shares through an intermediary at a different price—including those controlling the shares of a recently-deceased company director. The deceased employee’s wife sued, claiming that the board misled their shareholders into approving the purchase to complete an insider trading scheme.

Pontiac Mills was dragged to the center of this lawsuit when it was repeatedly used as an example of Bates intentionally over-hyping Fruit of the Loom to their shareholders without properly determining its value. Bates directors were interrogated over whether they knew the plant they’d raved about to their shareholders was actually a crumbling 100-year-old mill that had produced “unsatisfactory returns” for over a decade and was projected to do so in the future.

During this lawsuit, Fruit of the Loom Corporation was forced to reveal that a plan to sell Pontiac Mills already existed, and in the meantime it was being treated merely as a “safety valve” in their portfolio. As the lawsuit uncovered even more suspicious trading, the SEC sued to stop the sale. Fruit of the Loom eventually sold to another bidder, the Philadelphia & Reading Company, whose subsidiaries had already been licensing the Fruit of the Loom name for decades.

In 1966, the inevitable finally happened. Fruit of the Loom—a brand born at Pontiac Mills 110 years earlier—sold Pontiac Mills. The buyer was a New Jersey corporation called Allied Textile Printers, who scooped the mill up for a bargain price as Fruit of the Loom shifted to newer facilities in the midwest and overseas. But this last lease on life wouldn’t last long.

1970 End of an Era

The heartbeat finally stopped in March 1970, when it officially ceased operations for good with one week’s notice to employees, and was immediately vacated. The heartbroken Pontiac community organized a successful campaign to get the mill added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

After several years of uncertainty in which the mill sat abandoned, independent buyers Joseph Fazzano and Dixon Donovan purchased the property in 1973 and began leasing it out to miscellaneous commercial tenants, at various times including a local clothing reseller, a furniture store called Stylewise Convertibles, and a branch of Unclaimed Freight Co. But tenants were few and far between, the century-old buildings were deteriorating further, and the future of the complex was uncertain. One 1981 newspaper column mentions Pontiac Mills simply as “a clothing store in Warwick” which “lacks proper lighting”.

Children playing outside the abandoned Pontiac Mills in 1972 - ©1972 National Register of Historic Places

1990 Artisans’ Gathering

Pontiac Antiques & Art Emporium in Pontiac Mills circa 1998 — Pontiac Mills Building 1 as Pontiac Antiques & Art Emporium circa 1998

By the 1990s, it seemed the complex might have some life left in it yet. In addition to a few tenants remaining from the 1970s, the quaint location had begun to attract a small community of local artisans and craftmakers, including an antiques shop called Pontiac Antiques & Art Emporium, a metal crafter’s shop called Handle With Care, an Egyptian-palace-themed arts emporium called Diva’s Palace, a piano repairman, and a stone artisan called Castique. As recently as the late 90s, the community had hopes of fully rejuvenating the mill site with new businesses, cafés, and outdoor holidays parties.

The owner of Pontiac Antiques sent in a lengthy and quite funny interview about her time renting space in the mill in the late 90s, when it felt like a wild west and everyone was just scraping by. to display the full interview below.

It was roughly 1997 when I decided I needed lots of space and small rent. I had had a shop on Main Street in East Greenwich, and we had had an awful winter and most of Main Street was vacant, and I just decided to move. I fell in love with the mill, I cannot even recall how I heard about a possibility of space there. The acting manager was Florence Nelson. I believe just prior to when I arrived the very hands-on manager had an accident, maybe a fatal accident, doing some maintenance that he probably had no business doing, and Florence had been his assistant. She was a real sweetie, although maybe not such a great judge of character. She had empty space in Building 1 on the second floor, 18,000 ft², that once upon a time had been wall-to-wall typists for New York Live, I believe. It must’ve been like a scene from a movie of the period when you walked in the door and saw 18,000 ft² of desks with the clickety-clack and going on and business being conducted in lots of envelopes and licking of stamps. I took half of the first floor, to the left as you went up the stairs. I don’t remember what the access was for the right side, but as you looked at the building I had the left half of the second floor. With a creaky old freight elevator at the back. The mill didn’t get a lot of traffic, but I guess I was a believer in the theory of ‘if you build it they will come’. The ground floor, I believe, had a furniture store, can’t remember the name of it, but the old fella who owned it bought my truck at one point, so I’m pretty sure that’s where he was. I have always been enamoured of the notion of living where my shop was. Even in East Greenwich, I was only open three days a week and on the road, the rest of the time, so I lived in what was probably meant to be the office at the back of my store. I immediately set about the notion of cutting up the 18,000 ft² to make it manageable. I bought about 20 old arched windows that came out of a school house I think, and a ton of 4×8 trellis wood. So I hired a kid and started making partitions that were not anchored to the floor and the air would pass through and people could hang their artwork and make vignettes. And that’s how Pontiac Antiques and Arts Emporium was for a couple of years. The women’s room had about six or seven stalls that were meant to meet the needs of all those women typing and I tore out a few stalls and put a shower in. All the time Florence would stop by and say hello. ‘No you’re not going to live here, you can’t live here,’ but of course I was going to live there. So the very back of the 18,000 ft² would be the back of the building and the far left wall. I cordoned off an area. I suspect it was mostly closed down already, and I made a living quarters area at the end of the shop, where are the restrooms were the floor locked up a little bit for some reason. At that point I made a courtyard in the center and random-sized cubicles for studios and set all of the arched windows in the walls of the studios. Some girls did full painting and rented one of them, and they paid the rent by painting a brick floor, and I think it was beautiful. I intended to serve lunches and have a little café with the tables. I put in on the brick courtyard sitting with those beautiful windows looking in at people studios. So I had an upholsterer, a Russian kid, and he was very good. I had a calligrapher for awhile. And I have a stained glass artesan, Paul Karma, who had taken a pretty big size studio, so when you walked in the door you were in the main body of the shop and there were all of the open-air rented little co-op spaces, and then off to the left was the courtyard and café and the little art studios, and in the back corner my living space. There was another space that was sort of off the trail, and I came to call it Chernobyl. That was for things that really needed repair or things that I was doing a project with or things that I was working on in the middle of the night while I was watching it snow through the back windows. We were all just scraping by at Pontiac Mills. The free-standing building that was right up against the river used to be a window shop, and a fellow who was in some sort of marketing lived there, young guy, we used to hang out together. One summer I got out early maybe 4 mornings a week to buy whatever was fresh in some field where they were picking corn, all just a short drive, and we set up in front of the mill and sold fresh veggies to neighbors. Crazy, but we ate skillet corn and potatoes and onions and fresh fruit all summer. I got my hippie years in late. There were several other antique dealers in the mill, sort of off to the left and down in my hazy memory. And a very chi-chi little hole in the wall that sold beautiful custom architectural hardware. I was desperate to get some traffic to the mill and put together a tri-fold brochure with all of us in it, directions, that sort of thing. The building behind number one housed Old Betsy, the boiler that God installed when He was making our river. It would act up every so often, and Florence would call me in the dead of winter and say, “Just in case you happen to be at the mill tonight, working late, in case you happen to drop by to work on a piece of furniture, if you noticed that the boiler goes out, would you call Henry? I know you don’t live there, but you might be there by accident.” Poor Henry. I heard he had tried to retire, might even have been called back from Florida, and he was as old as I am now I think, but he was the only one who could keep Old Betsy in line. I had a dog when I lived at Pontiac Mills, and she was everyone’s friend. One day, around Christmas holidays, a young woman came through the mill, apparently visiting home from where she worked in Boston. Well, the next thing I knew a camera crew had shown up, and they took pictures of the mill and they took pictures of my dog, front and center above the fold, if I recall correctly, in the Boston Globe, in the section about things to do on the weekend, probably called Arts In The Living. They called Pontiac Mills the best-kept secret south of the border and it was a colour spread on more than one page, and there was Rose on the front page of the Arts In The Living section. Well, the next thing I knew, in the middle of a blizzard, people started coming through the door, unheard of at Pontiac Mills, a very low-traffic retail location. We knew they were from another planet because their purses and shoes matched and their hair was recently cut. They all had a folded newspaper, tucked under their arms or sticking out of their bags and they were all ready for a rest room and looking for lunch. I’m not going to say the traffic was great but, at least it was traffic, and it went on for a year. Printed newspapers used to be so influential in peoples’ lives. Rose had friends in the neighbourhood too, they would just come through the door and come up to the shop and walk right in, and then she would take off with them in the swamps. She had one little friend, a Jack Russell terrier with a bad hair life. We met him before we met his master, so we had no way to know his name was really Moses. We called him Scruffy. And he and my Rose would take off into the swamp down by the river and frequently be gone overnight, come dragging back the swamp with him, they really had a life... Once they disappeared and apparently wet up the interstate, because they wound up on Channel 10 News and I had a video of it because they had to be rescued by the fire department. One of them was on a cliff and the other one was down below, and he just barked and barked until the highway traffic stopped, and they looked up and saw my Rose at the top end. That was when I met Scruffy’s owner who just lived across the parking lot. It was easy to make friends at Pontiac Mills, Mark became a good friend and lives in Dallas now. A piano restorer was to the right of me, although you needed to go down outside the building and come in through another door and go upstairs, you know the mill, over the river and through the woods. I can’t remember the name of the shop, but it was an elderly man who had been restoring pianos, forever, and his son did most of the restoration, fine quality work. And Pontiac Treasures was there, a favourite haunt of mine whenever I have cash. They sold findings, pearls by the pound, rhinestones by the pound, all different sizes and shapes and colors, Austrian crystals and chain, and all of the wonderful jewelery findings that were the residue after the jewelery industry sold out to China. Although I loved the second floor, I can’t remember now why I got itchy feet and was looking for another project. The small building that is by the front gate used to be Joe’s Sandwich Shop, a residue from factory days, when Joey probably sold a million sandwiches, every lunch, all ham and cheese, to the factory workers. Next to that building was a wonderful, wonderful building that was long and narrow like a train car though wider, and I rented it out of madness. At the time I was also renting a lower area that you walk down in under the middle, a basement area sort of, and I was using it for storage only. It was extraordinarily damp. I didn’t realize when I rented it that it was open to the river looking down through the planks. I recall it had a back door and the front door and it was lower level. And the reason I recall that it had a back door was that someone came in through the back door while I was talking to someone in the front and stole a bag of wooden golf clubs, I think. In any event it was so damp that I have developed a horrendous cough and Florence, in all her wisdom, decided that it must be a drug problem. After all, why would anyone be sniffing and sneezing and coughing for months in a row, unless they had a drug problem! Deep sigh. In any event, I rented the little caboose building and set about the business of restoring it. I got a painter and he scraped and I painted it two shades of green, and it was so pretty, just like a storybook building, a real money-loser, but I’ve never been really profit-motivated. I opened the building up for open mics, and it was never well attended, but I had musician friends and we all had a very good time—and my cough dried out and eventually went away. There was a decorator, a really really sweet gal, Marie Simone I believe, in a ground floor space that opened to the front. I think back fondly about hard work and the years at the mill. There was a good sized building to the front and left. I’m thinking it was a school, but memory might be tricking me. It was unsafe and if any of my other mad commitments were money pits, the school was probably the Grand Canyon of money pits of all time. Florence often offered it to me for $1 a year for a five year commitment, and I am so glad that I was not crazy enough to try to think I could raise enough money to turn that into the beautiful structure it could be. I would love to see that someone did something with it, I always thought the entire mill was conducive to condos and workshop spaces in beautiful juxtaposition to one another. A beautiful way to live.

— Eva Wild (owner, Pontiac Antiques 1997-2001)

2001 A Failed Rebirth

A new player entered the scene in 2001, when Texas businessman and oil baron H. Hampton Hodges purchased the dilapidated Pontiac Mills, planning to renovate it into a mix of residential and commercial real estate and office space. Despite all appearances, this Texas oil man swooping in to renovate a property he’d never seen actually turned out to be one of the most sympathetic characters in this entire saga.

Pontiac Mills in 2002 - ©2002 The Warwick Beacon

For over a decade, after temporarily moving to the area and working closely with local governments to determine the right path forward, Hodges encountered setback after setback in his plan to save the mill.

In 2002, he lost his personal friend and the plan’s primary architect Bruno D’Agostino to cancer.
The Station Nightclub fire in 2003 resulted in huge changes to fire safety codes, which required starting over from scratch.
Further replanning was required by a string of environmental concerns due to a landfill upstream and the obstruction of fish migration due to the mill’s dam.
The tax credit program that would have funded much of the renovation was canceled in 2007.
2008 brought the “Great Recession” which tanked the real estate market.
A massive flood in 2010, and Hurricane Sandy in 2012, caused severe water damage to the already-dilapidated mill. (photo during flood)

The only part of Hodges’ plan that actually came to fruition was the NYLO Hotel, and even that had its share of troubles. The mill building that intended to be its home, a large storage building called Building S2, was deemed unsalvageable and had to be demolished and replaced with a new building “inspired by” mill architecture. The hotel finally opened its doors in 2008, but then NYLO (the company that operated the hotel) went bankrupt. The hotel’s future remained uncertain until it was purchased by Hilton, which operates the hotel today. It retains the NYLO moniker in name only.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy’s destruction, the mill had deteriorated to the point that Hodges could no longer afford to follow through with required renovation plans.

Pontiac Mills Building 4 before renovation — Pontiac Mills’ dilapidated state following Hurricane Sandy, as captured by photographer Joe Malachowski (Flickr)

The original Building 4, whose roof had already collapsed, was completely destroyed. It is now a courtyard.

Building 7’s wooden third story was destroyed, leaving the second floor roofless. The third story was never rebuilt.

Building 11’s first floor, filled with abandoned equipment, was left in chaos. This area is now Studio B Salon.

A skybridge between Building 11 and the now-demolished Building 28-32 complex had an entire side ripped off.

Pontiac Mills Building 7 before renovation — Pontiac Mills’ dilapidated state following Hurricane Sandy, as captured by photographer Joe Malachowski (Flickr)

The original Building 4, whose roof had already collapsed, was completely destroyed. It is now a courtyard.

Building 7’s wooden third story was destroyed, leaving the second floor roofless. The third story was never rebuilt.

Building 11’s first floor, filled with abandoned equipment, was left in chaos. This area is now Studio B Salon.

A skybridge between Building 11 and the now-demolished Building 28-32 complex had an entire side ripped off.

2014 Pontiac Lofts

After decades of speculation, the fate of Pontiac Mills was finally solidified in 2014 when Union Box Company, a development company specializing in restoring historic buildings, purchased the mill with the promise to finally follow D’Agostino’s now 13-year-old renovation plan as closely as possible. A full renovation of the property commenced, and Pontiac Mills finally reopened its doors in 2018.

Cover illustration of an ambitious restoration plan from 2014 for Pontiac Mills in Warwick, RI — Cover illustration of an ambitious restoration plan from 2014. Note the initial intention to fully restore Buildings 4A and 8, as well as the third floor of Building 7.

Today, the complex is a mix of residential and commercial space.

Residential apartments make up the largest buildings on the property, comprising Buildings 1, 2, most of 3, 4, 7, and 9. Building 21 is home to the mail room and gym on the ground floor, and one apartment each on the second and third floors.
The ground floor of Building 3 is home to a branch of Xylem (formerly Evoqua), a water treatment company. Building 6 houses ABI Interior Design. Building 11 is home to Studio B Salon, Apponaug Brewing Company, and Knight Street Capital which currently manages the property. Building 30 (a former garage and machine shop in back of the property) is home to On The Ropes Boxing. Building S1A is home to Epic Promotions which makes branded marketing materials and clothing.

Casualties of renovation

Several structures were deemed unsalvageable and demolished during renovation:

Buildings 28, 29, 31, and 32, a sprawling complex of adjoining storage and shipping buildings whose foundation is now used as a dog park
Building 26, a triangular building at the end of Building 11 whose foundation is now used by Apponaug Brewing as a patio with an outdoor bar made from a shipping container
Buildings 25, 27, and 33, small office-like extensions of Buildings 11, 9, and S1
The old Company Store which formerly sat on the other side of Building S1
The third floor of Building 7, an attic-style addition made of wood which sustained severe water damage
Skybridges between Buildings 1 and S1 and between Buildings 2 and 3 are still standing but sealed up due to compromised structural integrity

The only building still under construction as of 2024 is Building S1. Its second and fourth floors have been removed, turning five cramped floors originally intended for storage into three spacious floors which more closely match the height of the other buildings. (See before/after).

Bldg	Built	Original purpose	Today
1	1863	Main mill building, carding, spinning, weaving	Apartments
2	1867	Spinning and weaving	Apartments
3	1870	Bleaching, dyeing	Floor 1: Xylem Water Technologies Floors 2-3: Apartments
4	~1870	Originally referred to the building behind Building 3 which is now empty ruins. An extension of the bleachery which once held huge bleaching/dyeing kiers	collapsed; hollow ruins
4	~1900	Name later applied to the narrow building at the edge of the tail race which was originally called Bldg 20. Used for pattern printing and storage.	Two apartments
4A	~1890	Extension of the original Bldg 4 connecting to Bldg 6, used for chemical storage/mixing	Equipment storage; off limits and no longer signed
5	~1870	Small extension at back of Building 3, housing additional bleaching kiers	Now considered part of Building 3 (“Suite 3100”), part of the Xylem Water Technologies unit
6	~1870	Singeing line	Commercial tenant (ABI Designs)
7	~1870	Machine shop	Four apartments
8	1810 (predates modern mill)	1810: Waterwheel and/or water turbine house ~1880: Carpentry & machine shop	collapsed; hollow ruins
8A	1917	Electricity generator/dynamo Built in 1917 as the mill transitioned to electric power. The primary steam pipe, running through the tunnel from Bldg 9 to Bldg 21, ran through 8A’s roof and was harnessed to spin a dynamo to generate electricity for the complex from 1917 onwards	Single apartment
9	~1900*	Boiler house *Most likely also referred to the old boiler house at some point, hence the numbering	Four apartments
10	~1890	Storage building across the river	demolished to make way for Greenwich Village Apartments
11	1890	Extension of Building 1; lapping and weaving. Significantly rebuilt/expanded ~1930	Commercial tenants Studio B Salon Apponaug Brewing Company Knight Street Capital
12	?	unknown	demolished
13	?	unknown	demolished
14	~1890	Storage, lumber and box shop	demolished to make way for Greenwich Village Apartments
15	~1900	Office for Bldg 14	demolished to make way for Greenwich Village Apartments
16	~1900	Office for Bldg 10	demolished to make way for Greenwich Village Apartments
17	?	unknown	demolished
18	?	unknown	demolished
19	~1890	Gatehouse in front lot	One apartment
20	~1900	Original name of the building now known as Bldg 4 (see Bldg 4)	See Bldg 4
20	~1900	Now refers to small building in parking lot; former café for employees - did not originally have a Bldg #	Single tenant
21	~1900	Engine room This is the reason for the extremely beefy steel supports in the mail room—they originally held in place a stationary steam engine weighing nearly 10 tons!	Floor 1: mail room and gym Floors 2-3: one apartment each
22	?	unknown	demolished
23	?	unknown	demolished
24	?	unknown	demolished
25	~1900	Extension of Building 11 for additional cotton storage	demolished
26	~1890	Waste storage	demolished Foundation is now used for an Apponaug Brewing patio with an outdoor bar made from a shipping container
27	?	unknown	demolished
28	1895	Storehouses	demolished; foundation is now dog park Photo of Bldg 28’s last day before demolition in 2018
29	1895	Storehouses
30	~1900	Garage	Commercial (On The Ropes Boxing)
31	~1910	Extension of Bldgs 28-29	demolished
32	~1920	Extension of Bldgs 28-29-31 connecting to Bldg S1A	demolished
33	~1920	Addition to Building S1 (photo)	demolished (Foundation still remains)
S1	~1880	Cotton storehouse	Under renovation, will be apartments
S1A	~1890	Extension of Building S1 (offices)	Commercial tenant (Epic Promotions)
S2	~1890	Finished product storehouse connected to Building 3 (photo)	demolished to make room for NYLO Hotel