Sanford Mills and the Mousam River: The Development of a Layered Industrial Power System, 1867–1921

Introduction

The history of Sanford Mills in Sanford, York County, Maine, is also the history of a changing industrial power system. From its establishment beside the Mousam River in 1867, the mill developed from a water-powered textile works into a complex in which waterpower, coal-fired steam, and eventually hydroelectricity operated as overlapping sources of energy. The transformation was not a simple progression in which one technology replaced another. Instead, each new power source was added to an existing system, allowing the Goodall family to increase production while retaining the advantages of the Mousam River.

The physical evidence for this development is particularly strong. Contemporary industrial reports describe the transition from waterpower to steam and then electricity, while the Sanborn fire-insurance maps provide a remarkably detailed record of the physical growth of the steam plant. The August 1892 map documents a brick two-story Boiler House containing eleven boilers rated at 880 horsepower, arranged in two banks of six and five around a 155-foot stack.¹ The later maps show that this installation remained substantially intact through 1901, was reorganized in the first decade of the twentieth century, and was enlarged again by 1921. At the same time, contemporary descriptions of the mill's machinery reveal the enormous mechanical load that the power system had to sustain.

The result was a layered system: the Mousam River supplied hydraulic power; steam boilers supplied additional controllable power when waterpower was insufficient; and after 1899, water was also converted into electricity at Great Falls. Sanford Mills therefore illustrates an important stage in American industrial development, when older mechanical systems were not immediately discarded but were incorporated into increasingly complex combinations of hydraulic, steam, and electrical power.

The Mousam River and the Beginning of Sanford Mills

Thomas Goodall came to Sanford in 1867 and purchased the entire water privilege, including the existing mills. He established a lap-robe and plush manufactory, initially placing machinery in the loft of the old grist mill.² The choice of Sanford was inseparable from the Mousam River. The river passed directly through the village and offered an established hydraulic power site with dams, channels, and a usable fall.

The early Sanford Mills therefore depended upon water as its primary source of mechanical energy. The river did not merely provide water for industrial processes; it was the prime mover of the factory. Water was directed through the hydraulic works to turn water wheels, whose rotary motion was transmitted into the mill by shafts. The basic principle was straightforward: the gravitational energy of falling water was converted into rotation, and that rotation was distributed mechanically to the production machinery.

This type of system required an extensive transmission network. A water wheel could not simply turn a machine located somewhere else in the mill. Its motion had to pass through main shafts, secondary shafts, pulleys, belts, and line shafts. At the machines, belts could be engaged or disengaged to start or stop individual equipment. Such a system meant that the power plant, transmission system, and manufacturing floors were physically and mechanically interconnected.

The Mousam River had an important advantage. Contemporary state reporting described it as only about twenty-five miles long but noted its considerable flowage near its source and the relative constancy of its available water volume. The Sanford village falls were one of several important water powers on the river.³ Water was therefore a valuable industrial resource, but it had a fundamental limitation: the amount of mechanical power available depended upon the water flow and the hydraulic capacity of the existing works.

That limitation became increasingly important as Sanford Mills expanded.

Expansion and the Need for Supplemental Steam

During the 1870s and early 1880s, Goodall expanded the factory substantially. Additional mill buildings were constructed, and the range of textile operations increased. The historic district documentation identifies Mill #2 in 1873, another mill building around 1880, and Mill #4 in 1882. By the early 1880s the plant was no longer a small water-powered operation but a growing integrated textile complex.⁴

The construction of Mills #4 and #5 exposed the limitation of the hydraulic system. The National Register documentation states that it became clear that the river could not supply sufficient power for all of the mill machinery. The response was the construction of the Boiler House, dating from approximately 1882, to provide supplemental steam power from coal-fired boilers when the water flow was inadequate.⁵

This point is fundamental to understanding Sanford's power system. Steam was not originally introduced because the Goodalls had decided to abandon waterpower. Rather, steam was an additional prime mover.

The system consequently became:

Mousam River waterpower + coal-fired steam power.

The mechanical relationship between the two sources was unusually efficient. According to the historic district documentation, steam engines were installed in the various mills and their power was connected through clutches to the same line shafts turned by the water wheels.⁶ The same transmission system could therefore receive power from either source.

In practical terms, Sanford had created a form of industrial redundancy. When water conditions were favorable, hydraulic power could carry much of the load. When water was insufficient, steam engines could supplement the deficit. When the manufacturing load exceeded what the river could reliably provide, water and steam could operate together.

The importance of this arrangement becomes clearer when the scale of the manufacturing operation is considered.

What the Power Had to Run

Sanford Mills manufactured carriage robes, horse blankets, mohair plush, and related plush products. The 1900 Maine industrial report recorded an average workforce of 693 people at the Sanford Mills Company alone and valued its annual production at approximately $1 million. The report carefully distinguished this company from the separate Goodall Worsted Company, which employed another 718 people.⁷ That distinction is important because the two enterprises were closely associated geographically and commercially but were separate industrial operations.

The Sanford Mills process involved a succession of mechanically intensive operations. Raw wool and mohair had to be sorted and prepared. Carding and combing prepared the fibers. Spinning transformed the prepared fiber into yarn. Weaving then converted yarn into cloth, while subsequent operations included dyeing, printing, shearing, cutting, drying, finishing, and other treatments.

The 1900 report gives an unusually vivid description of the raw-material preparation. Wool and mohair arrived from places including Montana, Texas, California, Oregon, and overseas sources. Twenty-five or thirty skilled sorters worked at long sorting tables, separating the fibers according to their quality and length.⁸ The report also emphasizes that the machinery in the worsted mills was among the latest and most improved available, while much of the machinery in the plush mills represented specialized engineering developed by Sanford's own overseers and workmen.⁹

The complexity of plush production itself required specialized machinery. The cloth was woven around steel rods, which determined the length of the nap. Blades then cut the threads as the rods were withdrawn, leaving the characteristic raised surface of the plush.¹⁰ Such equipment was only one part of the mechanical load.

A useful machinery inventory appears in the Official American Textile Directory for 1901. It lists Sanford Mills with four combs, sixteen sets of cards, 200 looms, and 12,000 worsted spindles, with the plant identified as operating by steam and water.¹¹ These figures should not be treated as an exact inventory for 1892; they are approximately nine years later. They nevertheless provide an excellent indication of the scale of machinery that the Sanford power system had to support around the turn of the century.

The significance of 12,000 spindles is easy to underestimate. A spindle was not a passive component. Thousands of spindles had to rotate continuously, accompanied by rollers, gearing, belts, and other mechanisms. Two hundred power looms likewise contained numerous moving components that repeatedly accelerated, decelerated, and changed direction. Carding and combing machinery added still more continuous rotating loads.

And none of those machines was powered directly from a boiler.

The energy path was considerably longer:

coal → boiler → steam → steam engine → main shaft → line shaft → pulley and belt → machine.

Every stage involved mechanical losses. Bearings generated friction. Belts slipped and flexed. Pulleys and gears absorbed energy. The shafting itself had to be turned. Consequently, the horsepower stated for the boiler plant represented steam-generating capacity, not the exact horsepower finally available at the textile machinery.

This is why the 1892 figure of 880 horsepower is best understood as the scale of the steam-generating side of a much larger integrated power system.

The 1892 Boiler House

The August 1892 Sanborn map provides the clearest contemporary snapshot of Sanford's steam plant at the height of the water-and-steam era. The Boiler House was a two-story brick building containing eleven steam boilers. The boilers were arranged in two sections: six boilers in one bank and five in the other, with the stack positioned between them. The map gives the plant a total rating of 880 horsepower and identifies a 155-foot stack.¹²

The arrangement can be represented conceptually as:

six boilers — 155-foot stack — five boilers

for a total of:

eleven boilers / 880 horsepower.

The average, if the 880 horsepower were divided evenly among eleven boilers, would be 80 boiler horsepower per boiler. That calculation is useful only as an average; it should not be interpreted as proof that every boiler had an identical rating.

What matters historically is the scale of the installation. Eleven boilers were not a minor auxiliary plant intended merely to provide occasional heat. They formed a substantial industrial steam-generating station serving a large manufacturing complex.

The water system remained essential. The boiler plant should therefore be visualized not as replacing the Mousam River but as joining it:

Mousam River → water wheels → mechanical transmission

alongside

coal → boilers → steam engines → mechanical transmission.

The two streams of power could then enter the common shafting system serving the manufacturing machinery.

This explains why the Goodalls could expand production beyond what the river alone could reliably sustain without abandoning the river itself.

1892–1901: Stability in the Steam Plant

The later Sanborn maps reveal an important fact that is easy to miss when looking only at individual maps: the original steam plant was remarkably stable for almost a decade.

The December 1896 map continues to show a two-story brick Boiler House with eleven boilers rated at 880 horsepower, retaining the six-and-five arrangement and the 155-foot stack.¹³ At the same time, the boiler complex had gained a new two-story wooden Coal House attached to it.

The December 1901 map again records eleven boilers and 880 horsepower, with the same basic six-and-five arrangement and 155-foot stack.¹⁴ The Coal House expansion remained attached to the Boiler House.

This continuity is significant. Between 1892 and 1901, the Goodalls did not simply replace the entire steam plant every few years. The eleven-boiler installation remained sufficiently useful to continue operating at the same stated rating.

The expansion instead appeared in the infrastructure surrounding the boilers. The growing Coal House indicates the importance of fuel handling and storage. The steam plant depended upon a continuous supply of coal, and the later history of the complex shows how important coal transportation became. Coal was delivered to Sanford by rail, including through the Atlantic Shore Line system, and workers eventually shoveled coal into the boilers by hand.¹⁵

The steam plant was therefore an entire industrial infrastructure, not merely a room filled with boilers.

1906: Reconstruction and Reorganization

The October 1906 Sanborn map records the first clear change in the boiler population. The Boiler House now contained ten boilers rather than eleven, arranged five on each side of the stack. The map no longer gives the 880-horsepower figure. The stack remained 155 feet.¹⁶

At the same time, the former wooden two-story Coal House had become a full two-story brick expansion of the Boiler House.

This physical change is particularly revealing. The coal-handling space that had been added to support the earlier steam plant had effectively become part of the permanent boiler-house structure.

The reduction from eleven boilers to ten should not automatically be interpreted as a reduction in total steam capacity. The maps do not provide a new horsepower figure, and a boiler could be replaced by a newer or larger unit. What can safely be said is that the number of boilers decreased while the physical boiler-house complex was substantially enlarged and rebuilt in brick.

The National Register documentation independently confirms this architectural development. It identifies the Boiler House as having undergone four principal phases between approximately 1882 and 1930 and states that its width was essentially doubled in 1906 through construction of an addition along the west side.¹⁷

Thus, the 1906 map records both a numerical reorganization of the boilers and a major architectural enlargement of the power plant.

1912: A Mature Ten-Boiler Plant

The July 1912 Sanborn map shows the ten-boiler arrangement continuing: five boilers on one side of the stack and five on the other. The stack is listed at 150 feet.¹⁸

The persistence of the five-and-five arrangement between 1906 and 1912 suggests that the 1906 reorganization represented a stable configuration rather than a short-lived transitional condition.

The change from the 155-foot stack shown in 1906 to the 150-foot measurement in 1912 should be treated cautiously. The five-foot difference may reflect an actual alteration, a measurement difference, or the way the Sanborn surveyor recorded the structure. It does not by itself demonstrate a major change in the chimney.

What is more important is that the steam plant remained physically substantial after the introduction of hydroelectricity in 1899.

1899 and the Arrival of Electricity

The development of electricity at Sanford did not mean that the old power system disappeared.

In 1898, a dam and electric generating plant were constructed at Great Falls on the Mousam River, approximately eight miles below Sanford. In February 1899, machinery in the Sanford Mills began operating on electricity generated at the new plant, although waterpower continued to be used to some extent.¹⁹

The transformation was therefore technologically different from the earlier addition of steam.

The old hydraulic system converted:

water → mechanical rotation → shafts.

The hydroelectric system converted:

water → turbine → generator → electricity → electric motor → machinery.

Electricity made it possible to distribute power more flexibly than a system dependent entirely upon long mechanical shafts and belts. It also allowed the energy of the Mousam River to be generated at a separate power station and transmitted to the mill.

Yet the evidence demonstrates that electricity did not immediately eliminate steam. Indeed, the 1900 Maine report explicitly states that the Sanford Mills machinery had begun operating by electricity while waterpower was still used, and it separately notes that the Goodall Worsted Mills continued to be operated by steam.²⁰

This distinction is important. Sanford's industrial power history was not a clean sequence of replacement. It was an accumulation of technologies.

1921: Expansion to Fourteen Boilers

The June 1921 Sanborn map documents another major stage in the development of the steam plant. The principal brick Boiler House was now designated No. 27. The original boiler section retained the five-boiler arrangement on either side of a stack, but the stack was now recorded at 154 feet.

That original section therefore contained:

five boilers — 154-foot stack — five boilers

or ten boilers.

But the map also shows four additional boilers in the expanded portion of the building, in the area formerly associated with the Coal House. These four boilers were served by a second stack, 172 feet high.²¹

The total boiler population was consequently:

ten original boilers + four additional boilers = fourteen boilers.

This distinction is important. The 172-foot stack did not serve all fourteen boilers. It belonged to the four-boiler addition. The original ten-boiler section retained its own 154-foot stack.

The architectural history confirms this sequence. The National Register documentation identifies a 1921 addition at the south end of the Boiler House and notes that the tall brick stack associated with that addition was constructed at the same time.²²

The 1921 plant therefore represents a significant expansion of steam infrastructure:

1892: 11 boilers

1906: 10 boilers

1912: 10 boilers

1921: 14 boilers

The increase to fourteen boilers is especially striking because it occurred more than two decades after hydroelectric generation had been introduced.

What the Boiler Growth Reveals about Power Demand

The boiler count cannot be treated as a direct measurement of mill production. Boilers varied in size, efficiency, operating pressure, and condition. Furthermore, horsepower ratings are not supplied for every Sanborn year. Nevertheless, the sequence provides an important indicator of the changing scale and organization of Sanford's steam infrastructure.

The plant begins with eleven boilers and 880 horsepower in 1892. That same stated capacity remains in the 1896 and 1901 maps. The plant is reorganized to ten boilers by 1906, remains at ten in 1912, and then expands to fourteen by 1921.

This is not the pattern expected if steam had become irrelevant after the arrival of electricity.

Instead, it suggests that Sanford continued to find substantial value in steam-generating capacity. The reasons cannot be established solely from the Sanborn maps. Steam may have continued to supply mechanical power, provided reserve or peak capacity, supplied process heat, or performed several of these functions simultaneously.

The important conclusion is narrower and stronger: steam remained sufficiently important to justify continued investment in boiler-house infrastructure after the introduction of hydroelectric power.

The 1921 addition is particularly persuasive because it required not merely additional boilers but a separate 172-foot stack. This was a permanent enlargement of the steam plant.

The Machinery Behind the Demand

The scale of Sanford's machinery helps explain why such a large and persistent power system was necessary.

The 1901 textile directory lists approximately 12,000 worsted spindles and 200 looms, along with four combs and sixteen sets of cards.²³ Those figures describe an industrial operation in which thousands of moving elements had to run continuously.

The spinning department alone represented an enormous mechanical load. Twelve thousand spindles had to rotate, while associated rollers and gearing drew out and twisted the fiber. Carding machinery used large rotating cylinders to separate and align fibers. Combing machinery performed a more selective preparation of long fibers. Drawing and other preparation equipment further processed the material before spinning.

The weaving department then imposed another major load. Two hundred power looms repeatedly raised and lowered heddles, moved shuttles, beat the filling into place, and advanced the cloth. The machinery operated at speed and required a continuous supply of mechanical energy.

Finishing created additional loads. Sanford's plush production involved shearing, cutting, dyeing, printing, drying, and other operations. The 1900 report describes the specialized nature of the machinery and emphasizes that many machines in the plush mills had been developed or modified by Sanford's own engineers and workers.²⁴

The machinery also required an extensive power-transmission system. The horsepower generated by a steam engine or water wheel had to travel through shafts, bearings, pulleys, belts, and gearing before reaching the machine.

Consequently, the true power demand of Sanford Mills was not simply the sum of the horsepower of its looms and spindles. The mill had to supply the energy required to keep the entire transmission system operating as well.

This is why the 880-horsepower steam plant should not be interpreted as “880 horsepower for the looms.” It was the rated capacity of a steam-generating installation feeding prime movers that participated in a much larger mechanical system, while waterpower simultaneously supplied additional energy.

Production Growth and Increasing Complexity

The power demand becomes even more understandable when placed beside Sanford's production growth.

The National Register history records an annual plush output of approximately 384,800 yards in 1892. By 1937, annual plush production had risen to roughly 4 million yards, while employment had reached approximately 2,000 people.²⁵ The growth was therefore enormous over the longer term.

Even before that later expansion, the 1900 Maine report described Sanford's plush industry as producing approximately $1 million worth of goods annually, while the combined Sanford and Goodall industrial operations occupied more than eight acres and employed nearly 1,500 people.²⁶

The plant was consequently a large industrial community whose power requirements arose from many departments operating simultaneously.

The machinery also became increasingly specialized. Sanford's products were not simple coarse textiles. Mohair plush required carefully prepared fibers, specialized weaving, and finishing. The 1900 report describes the material as having a raised nap and notes its use in railroad-car interiors, carriages, furniture, decorative fabrics, and other applications.²⁷

This specialization helps explain why the Goodalls continued investing in power infrastructure. Their competitive advantage depended partly upon machinery and production methods that could reliably manufacture high-quality specialized textiles.

A Layered Power System

By the early twentieth century, Sanford's energy system can best be understood as a series of overlapping layers rather than a succession of replacements.

The first layer was the Mousam River hydraulic system. It supplied the original mechanical power and remained in use after steam was introduced.

The second layer was coal-fired steam. It was added when the expanding mills exceeded the dependable capacity of the river. The Boiler House provided a controllable source of power that could supplement the water wheels when water conditions were inadequate.

The third layer was hydroelectric generation. Beginning in 1899, water from the Mousam River was used at Great Falls to generate electricity that could be transmitted to Sanford Mills.

The system can therefore be understood conceptually as:

Mousam River → water wheels → mechanical shafts

plus

coal → boilers → steam engines → mechanical shafts

and later

Mousam River → hydroelectric plant → electricity → electric machinery.

These layers were not mutually exclusive.

That is the central fact of Sanford's power history.

Conclusion

Sanford Mills' development along the Mousam River illustrates the gradual transformation of nineteenth-century industrial power. Thomas Goodall's 1867 enterprise began with waterpower, using the Mousam River as its primary source of mechanical energy. As the mills expanded during the 1870s and early 1880s, the hydraulic system could no longer provide all the power required by the growing machinery. Coal-fired steam was therefore introduced as a supplement rather than a replacement.

By 1892, the scale of the steam installation was substantial. The Sanborn map records a two-story brick Boiler House containing eleven boilers rated at 880 horsepower and arranged six on one side and five on the other around a 155-foot stack. That plant remained essentially unchanged through 1901, even as coal-handling facilities expanded. In 1906 the Boiler House was enlarged in brick and the boiler count became ten. The ten-boiler arrangement remained through 1912. By 1921, four additional boilers had been installed in the expanded portion of the Boiler House, with their own 172-foot stack, bringing the total to fourteen boilers.

At the same time, the machinery that consumed this energy was extensive. By around 1901, Sanford Mills had approximately 12,000 worsted spindles, 200 looms, sixteen sets of cards, and four combs, in addition to dyeing, finishing, and specialized plush-making machinery. The 880 boiler horsepower of 1892 therefore supported not one machine or one department but an integrated factory in which thousands of moving components operated through an extensive system of shafts, belts, pulleys, and engines.

The arrival of hydroelectricity in 1899 did not end this development. Instead, electricity became another layer in the system. Water could now be converted into electrical energy at Great Falls and transmitted to the mills, while the older hydraulic and steam systems continued to exist. The subsequent expansion of the boiler plant demonstrates that steam remained valuable even after electricity had become available.

Sanford Mills therefore represents a layered industrial power system. The Mousam River was the original source of energy; steam was added when industrial demand exceeded dependable hydraulic capacity; and hydroelectricity later transformed the same river's energy into a more flexible form of power. The Sanborn maps make the physical development of this system unusually visible: the boiler house, coal facilities, stacks, boiler arrangements, and later additions reveal an industrial power plant that was continually adapted to the demands of a growing textile enterprise.

The history is consequently not one of water giving way to steam and steam giving way to electricity. It is a history of accumulation, adaptation, and integration. Sanford's industrial success depended upon its ability to make the Mousam River, coal, steam engines, mechanical transmission, and eventually electricity work together as parts of one increasingly sophisticated manufacturing system.

Footnotes

1. Sanborn-Perris Map Company, Insurance Map of Sanford, York County, Maine, August 1892, sheet 3, unpaginated.

2. Samuel W. Matthews, Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine, 1899 (Augusta: Kennebec Journal Print, 1900), 88.

3. Maine, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine, 1911, vol. 2, 55.

4. Christine Beard, Sanford Mills Historic District, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (Washington, DC: National Park Service, 2009), 11–12.

5. Beard, Sanford Mills Historic District, 12.

6. Beard, Sanford Mills Historic District, 12.

7. Matthews, Thirteenth Annual Report, 88.

8. Matthews, Thirteenth Annual Report, 96–97.

9. Matthews, Thirteenth Annual Report, 97.

10. Matthews, Thirteenth Annual Report, 97–98.

11. Textile World Journal, comp., Official American Textile Directory: Containing Reports of All the Textile Manufacturing Establishments in the United States and Canada, Together with the Yarn Trade Index (Boston: Guild & Lord; New York: Bragdon, Lord & Nagle, 1901), entry for “Sanford Mills,” Maine section, unpaginated. The directory identifies the location as Sanford, G-7, and lists four combs, sixteen sets, 200 looms, 12,000 worsted spindles, and steam and water power.

12. Sanborn-Perris Map Company, Insurance Map of Sanford, York County, Maine, August 1892, sheet 3, unpaginated.

13. Sanborn-Perris Map Company, Insurance Map of Sanford, York County, Maine, December 1896, sheet 3, unpaginated.

14. Sanborn-Perris Map Company, Insurance Map of Sanford, York County, Maine, December 1901, sheet 4, unpaginated.

15. Maine Memory Network, “Maine History Online—Electric Railways and the Goodall Mills,” section containing “Boiler Room, Sanford Mills, ca. 1915,” no page number; see also the associated Sanford-Springvale Historical Society collection record.

16. Sanborn-Perris Map Company, Insurance Map of Sanford, York County, Maine, October 1906, sheet 7, unpaginated.

17. Beard, Sanford Mills Historic District, 4.

18. Sanborn-Perris Map Company, Insurance Map of Sanford, York County, Maine, July 1912, sheet 8, unpaginated.

19. Matthews, Thirteenth Annual Report, 98.

20. Matthews, Thirteenth Annual Report, 98.

21. Sanborn-Perris Map Company, Insurance Map of Sanford, York County, Maine, June 1921, sheet 8, unpaginated.

22. Beard, Sanford Mills Historic District, 4.

23. Textile World Journal, Official American Textile Directory, Maine section, “Sanford Mills,” unpaginated.

24. Matthews, Thirteenth Annual Report, 97–98.

25. Beard, Sanford Mills Historic District, 12.

26. Matthews, Thirteenth Annual Report, 88.

27. Matthews, Thirteenth Annual Report, 96–98.

Bibliography

Beard, Christine. Sanford Mills Historic District. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. Washington, DC: National Park Service, 2009.

Maine. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine. Vol. 2. 1911.

Matthews, Samuel W. Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine, 1899. Augusta: Kennebec Journal Print, 1900.

Sanborn-Perris Map Company. Insurance Map of Sanford, York County, Maine. August 1892. Sheet 3.

———. Insurance Map of Sanford, York County, Maine. December 1896. Sheet 3.

———. Insurance Map of Sanford, York County, Maine. December 1901. Sheet 4.

———. Insurance Map of Sanford, York County, Maine. October 1906. Sheet 7.

———. Insurance Map of Sanford, York County, Maine. July 1912. Sheet 8.

———. Insurance Map of Sanford, York County, Maine. June 1921. Sheet 8.

Textile World Journal, comp. Official American Textile Directory: Containing Reports of All the Textile Manufacturing Establishments in the United States and Canada, Together with the Yarn Trade Index. Boston: Guild & Lord; New York: Bragdon, Lord & Nagle, 1901.

Sanford Mills, 1867–1955

Industry, Labor, Production, Markets, and Decline

Introduction

For nearly ninety years, Sanford Mills was the industrial heart of Sanford, Maine. Founded in 1867 by the English-born textile manufacturer Thomas Goodall, the enterprise grew from a small water-powered woolen mill into a nationally important manufacturer of specialty textiles. Its history traces the larger transformation of American manufacturing: water power gave way to steam and electricity; horse-drawn transportation gave way to railroads and automobiles; hand-skilled textile production became increasingly mechanized; immigrant labor became organized industrial labor; and a locally controlled textile business eventually became part of a large corporate enterprise operating in national and international markets.

Sanford Mills was never simply a factory. It was a complex industrial system involving dams, powerhouses, mill buildings, dye houses, print works, warehouses, transportation systems, company housing, skilled and unskilled labor, sales networks, and an extensive supply chain reaching far beyond Maine. The mills processed wool, mohair, alpaca, cotton, rayon, and later synthetic fibers. Their products included carriage robes, blankets, mohair plush, railroad upholstery, automobile fabrics, furniture upholstery, clothing materials, carpeting, draperies, and military textiles. At the height of its influence, Sanford supplied an extraordinary proportion of the railroad plush used in the United States and Canada.²

The company's success rested upon its ability to specialize. Rather than attempting to compete primarily in the enormous market for inexpensive ordinary cloth, Sanford concentrated on fabrics requiring technical skill, distinctive appearance, durability, and specialized finishing. That strategy brought the company into some of the most important transportation and consumer markets of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It also exposed the company to the risks of changing technology, increasingly aggressive national competition, labor costs, and the geographic relocation of textile production.

The story ended in stages during 1954 and 1955. Goodall-Sanford, Inc., after years of heavy losses, entered liquidation. More than 1,300 workers received termination notices in December 1954 and February 1955, while the remaining operations were progressively shut down. By April 5, 1955, production at the Sanford and Springvale mills had ended and the properties had been sold.³ The closing ended an industrial era, but the surviving buildings remain as one of Maine's most important textile landscapes.

I. Founding the Mills, 1867–1880

Thomas Goodall brought to Sanford the experience of an English textile manufacturer and an understanding of the opportunities created by America's expanding transportation and consumer economy. Goodall had learned the woolen trade in Yorkshire before coming to the United States. In New Hampshire he became associated with the manufacture of horse blankets and developed products adapted to the needs of American transportation. His experience during the Civil War and in the export trade gave him a useful combination of manufacturing and commercial knowledge.⁴

In 1867 Goodall selected Sanford as the site for his new enterprise. The town offered an essential industrial resource: water power from the Mousam River. Goodall acquired existing mills, land, and water rights and began transforming the modest local manufacturing complex into a specialized woolen operation.⁵

The first years were devoted principally to woolen fabrics, including kersey and pile fabrics, together with carriage and horse blankets. The business expanded rapidly. Goodall established dyeing and printing capabilities and increasingly brought processes that had previously been performed elsewhere into the Sanford operation. By recruiting experienced English textile workers, he was able to introduce techniques that required specialized knowledge rather than merely large quantities of inexpensive labor.⁶

The development of dyeing and printing was particularly important. The company's competitive strategy depended upon producing fabrics with distinctive colors, textures, patterns, and finishes. Sanford therefore developed a production system that was more complex than a simple woolen weaving mill. Raw fibers were prepared, spun, woven, dyed, printed, dried, finished, and packed for shipment.

By the 1870s the enterprise had become substantial enough to justify incorporation as Sanford Mills in 1877. The mill complex continued to grow through the addition of buildings and machinery, and the Goodall family's other textile interests eventually became closely connected to Sanford's industrial economy.⁷

II. Water, Steam, and Electricity

The physical development of Sanford Mills was inseparable from the development of power.

During the nineteenth century, the Mousam River provided the principal source of mechanical energy. Water wheels drove machinery through shafts, belts, and other mechanical connections. The arrangement was efficient when river conditions were favorable, but it was also vulnerable to seasonal fluctuations in water flow. As the mill grew, dependable supplementary power became increasingly important.

Steam power provided the first major solution. Boilers and steam engines supplemented the water wheels, allowing production to continue when water power was inadequate. The transition was gradual: Sanford did not immediately abandon water power but combined hydraulic and steam energy as industrial requirements increased.⁸

The decisive change came in the late 1890s. A hydroelectric generating station was developed at Great Falls on the Mousam River in Kennebunk, downstream from Sanford. Electricity generated there could be transmitted to the Sanford mills, eliminating the need to locate all power-generating equipment immediately beside the individual mill buildings. In 1899 Sanford Mills began operating machinery with electricity generated at Great Falls.⁹

The change had both technological and economic significance. Electricity allowed machinery to be arranged more flexibly and reduced the dependence upon local steam engines. It also connected the Sanford industrial complex to a broader regional power system. The Maine industrial report for 1899–1900 noted the transition and associated reduction in coal consumption.¹⁰

The Goodall family's interests extended beyond the mill itself. Members of the family were involved in electric utilities and transportation, including the local electric railway. Industrial production, electrical generation, transportation, and urban development therefore became mutually reinforcing parts of the Goodall family's economic influence in Sanford.¹¹

The transition from water to electricity was not merely a technological improvement. It allowed Sanford Mills to become a modern industrial complex whose buildings could be designed around increasingly sophisticated electrical machinery rather than around the location of individual water wheels.

III. The Mohair Revolution

The most important commercial transformation in Sanford Mills' nineteenth-century history was the development of mohair plush.

Mohair, derived from the fleece of the Angora goat, possesses a distinctive combination of strength, luster, resilience, and ability to take brilliant dyes. European manufacturers, particularly those in France and Germany, had dominated the high-quality mohair-plush market. Sanford's opportunity was to reproduce and eventually improve upon that product in an American factory.¹²

George Goodall developed a power loom capable of producing high-quality mohair plush in Sanford in 1883. The achievement gave the company access to a specialized market that was considerably more profitable than ordinary woolen cloth.¹³

The manufacturing process was complicated. Mohair had to be sorted according to quality, prepared and scoured, woven into pile fabric, dried, sheared, sometimes printed or embossed, finished, and packed. The quality of the finished product depended upon the skill of workers at multiple stages of production. Sanford consequently required both machinery and specialized human knowledge.

The raw-material supply was international. Mohair came principally from areas associated with the Angora goat, including Asiatic Turkey, while additional supplies were obtained from the American West. Alpaca came from South America, and wool came from several American states. Sanford's position in the specialty market thus depended upon an international supply chain even though manufacturing took place in a small Maine town.¹⁴

By the turn of the century the results were dramatic. Sanford Mills and the associated Goodall textile interests were producing goods worth millions of dollars annually and employing well over a thousand workers. The Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics reported that Sanford Mills alone employed an average of 693 workers in the period covered by its report, while the Goodall Worsted Company employed another 718.¹⁵

This was the foundation of Sanford's national reputation.

IV. From Carriage Robes to Railroad Cars

Sanford's first major transportation market was the horse-drawn carriage. Carriage robes and blankets were important products during the nineteenth century, when American transportation depended upon horses.

The railroad transformed that market. As passenger rail travel expanded, railroad companies needed attractive, durable upholstery for increasingly elaborate passenger cars. Sanford's mohair plush proved ideally suited to the interiors of railroad cars.

The Maine industrial report specifically identified Sanford plush as material used for the lining and seats of Pullman cars.¹⁶ This was a strategically important market because Pullman cars represented the high end of American railroad travel. Sanford's fabric was not simply an industrial commodity; it was part of the visible interior of luxury transportation.

By 1928 Sanford Mills reportedly supplied approximately 75 percent of the railroad plush used in the United States and Canada.¹⁷ If accurate, the figure represents the clearest single measure of Sanford's dominance in its specialty field.

The geographic implications were substantial. The company sold far beyond Maine and New England. Canada became part of the core North American market, while Sanford also developed documented overseas business.

A Maine industrial report recorded that Sanford had produced plush for electric railway cars being introduced in Japan, including plush for the private car of the Japanese emperor.¹⁸ This provides unusually specific evidence of an overseas market. Sanford's products were therefore capable of traveling from a Maine mill to prestigious transportation projects on the other side of the world.

Sanford's market was consequently best understood in three concentric circles: a New England industrial base, a dominant national and Canadian market, and a smaller but significant international market.

V. The Automobile Revolution

The automobile presented Sanford Mills with both a threat and an opportunity.

The old carriage market depended upon horse-drawn transportation, and the rise of the automobile eventually destroyed much of that business. Sanford's response was to transfer its expertise in plush and upholstery to the new transportation industry.

By 1914 Sanford Mills plush was being supplied to Fisher Body Corporation for automobile upholstery. The company's fabrics subsequently entered automobiles associated with Cadillac, Kissel, Buick, Oakland, Chrysler, and other manufacturers.¹⁹

This was an important change in the company's position in the supply chain. Sanford did not necessarily sell directly to every automobile manufacturer. Instead, its specialty fabrics could move through body manufacturers, upholstery contractors, and other suppliers before becoming part of a finished automobile.

The result was a transformation rather than a simple decline. The horse disappeared from American transportation, but the upholstered passenger compartment survived. Sanford changed the product while preserving the underlying manufacturing expertise.

By the 1930s automobile fabrics represented a major portion of the company's production. In 1937 the mills reportedly produced approximately four million yards of plush, and employment approached 2,000 workers.²⁰

VI. Furniture, Hotels, Aircraft, and Clothing

The automobile and railroad markets were not Sanford's only customers.

Furniture upholstery was an important early application of mohair plush. The Goodall family's plush business had been established partly around carriage and furniture upholstery, and furniture remained an important market as the company expanded.²¹

Hotels provided another important commercial market. Plush fabrics were used in upholstered furniture and elaborate interiors, where durability and appearance were both important. Sanford's specialty fabrics therefore entered the growing national hospitality industry.

Aircraft upholstery became another twentieth-century application. The National Register documentation identifies aircraft among the transportation markets served by Sanford's plush facilities.²²

The Goodall Worsted operation developed a complementary market in clothing. It produced worsted yarns and fabrics for men's and women's clothing, cloakings, and linings. The most famous consumer-oriented product associated with the Goodall enterprise was Palm Beach cloth, which became a nationally recognized summer clothing material.²³

The company's customer base thus extended from industrial manufacturers to consumer clothing markets:

• railroads and railroad-car manufacturers;

• automobile manufacturers and body companies;

• furniture and upholstery manufacturers;

• hotels and commercial interiors;

• aircraft-related manufacturers;

• clothing manufacturers;

• government agencies during wartime;

• retailers and consumers reached through the Palm Beach brand.

The commercial geography expanded accordingly. Manufacturing remained in Sanford, while sales increasingly operated through major American commercial centers. By 1951 Goodall-Sanford's sales headquarters were located on Madison Avenue in New York City, reflecting the company's integration into the national textile and apparel market.²⁴

VII. The Workforce

The mills could not have achieved this level of specialization without a highly varied workforce.

Thomas Goodall recruited experienced English textile workers because the company needed skills that were not yet widespread in Maine. Later, French Canadian immigrants became an increasingly important component of the Sanford labor force. By 1910 foreign-born residents constituted a substantial portion of Sanford's population, and the town developed a distinct French Canadian community.²⁵

The occupations within the mills were numerous. Production required wool and fiber sorters, carders, spinners, weavers, dyers, printers, shearers, finishers, packers, mechanics, machinists, electricians, engineers, firemen, maintenance workers, supervisors, laboratory workers, clerks, and shipping employees.

The sorting room illustrates the importance of skill. Workers had to distinguish fibers by length, quality, and fineness because the characteristics of the raw material affected the quality of the finished textile.²⁶

The workforce also included women and children. Lewis Wickes Hine's 1909 photograph of the Sanford Manufacturing Company shows young boys and girls employed during the noon hour. The surviving caption explicitly identifies the workplace as “Sanford Mfg. Co., Sanford, Me.”²⁷ The photograph is valuable evidence of child employment, although the caption does not provide the children's ages and should not be used to make unsupported claims about the exact ages of individual workers.

This evidence also requires an important distinction. Sanford contained several Goodall-related textile enterprises, and the term “Sanford Mills” was not always used in historical sources with the same precision as it is today. The photograph therefore establishes employment at the institution identified by Hine as Sanford Manufacturing Company, but it should not automatically be assigned to every building or subsidiary within the Goodall textile complex.²⁸

VIII. Industrial Injuries

The legal record provides some of the clearest surviving evidence of actual workplace injuries.

In 1896 William L. Nelson brought an action against Sanford Mills. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court upheld a nonsuit, concluding that Nelson's own “unjustifiable and foolhardy conduct” contributed to the injury.²⁹ The case belongs to the nineteenth-century legal world in which injured workers frequently had to overcome doctrines of contributory negligence and assumption of risk.

The situation changed after Maine adopted workers' compensation legislation in 1915.³⁰

A particularly revealing case was McDougal's Case, decided in 1929. The claimant was an electrician employed at Sanford Mills. On February 5, 1928, he was working on the ceiling of one of the mills, standing on a ladder while swinging conduit pipe. His shin remained pressed against an upper rung for a considerable period. Later that evening his leg became severely swollen. Medical treatment was required, including an incision to remove pus, and he was disabled for several weeks.³¹

The Industrial Accident Commission found that the injury resulted from the chafing of the worker's shin against the ladder rung. Sanford challenged the award on the ground that the injury was not an “accident.” The Maine Supreme Judicial Court rejected that argument. The court held that an accidental injury need not be instantaneous; an injury that developed over a period of hours could still qualify.³²

The case is significant because it shows a hazard that is easily overlooked in histories of textile mills. Not every serious industrial injury involved a dramatic machinery accident. Maintenance work, electrical installation, ladders, repetitive movement, pressure, and physical strain could also produce disabling injuries.

Another case, Robitaille's Case, reached the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in 1943. George A. Robitaille was regularly employed at Sanford Mills and also served as an auxiliary firefighter. While responding to a fire he suffered first- and second-degree burns to his head, hands, and arms. Sixteen days later he died from coronary thrombosis. His widow sought workers' compensation, arguing that the physical exertion, mental stress, or burns had caused or aggravated the fatal condition. The Industrial Accident Commission rejected the claim, and the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed because the evidence did not establish the required causal connection.³³

The cases demonstrate that the legal history of Sanford Mills included more than a record of machinery accidents. It involved questions of negligence, disability, medical causation, occupational risk, and the changing legal definition of an industrial accident.

IX. Industrial Architecture

The architecture of Sanford Mills records the technological evolution of the enterprise.

The earliest surviving buildings are primarily utilitarian. The surviving Boiler House, dating from approximately 1882, represents the increasing importance of steam power. The Print Shop, constructed in 1889, represents the importance of finishing and printing operations.³⁴

The architectural language changed dramatically after 1910. Older wood-frame structures were replaced or supplemented by large brick and reinforced-concrete buildings. George A. Clark, Sanford Mills' chief engineer, and later his son Frank W. Clark, were responsible for important portions of the rebuilding program.³⁵

The later mills used large windows, steel sash, reinforced concrete, brick walls, substantial structural members, and expansive interior floors capable of carrying heavy machinery. Mills #2, #3, and #4 represent the transition toward twentieth-century industrial architecture. Their construction allowed greater flexibility in machinery arrangement and improved fire resistance compared with the earlier wood buildings.³⁶

The architecture therefore represents three overlapping technological eras:

• water-powered nineteenth-century textile production;

• steam-powered industrial expansion in the late nineteenth century;

• electrified, reinforced-concrete industrial production in the twentieth century.

The buildings are consequently historical documents in themselves.

X. Industrial Operations and Production

The complexity of Sanford Mills is best understood by following the material through the factory.

Raw fibers entered the mill complex and passed through sorting, picking, carding, spinning, and weaving. Depending upon the product, the cloth then underwent dyeing, printing, shearing, washing, drying, embossing, finishing, and packing. Different buildings specialized in different stages. The physical arrangement of the complex was therefore a map of the production process. Mohair plush remained particularly important because it required multiple specialized operations. The company developed an international reputation for the quality of its pile fabrics and the brilliance of its dyes. The ability to produce technically difficult fabrics gave Sanford protection from some of the competition affecting ordinary woolen mills.

The company nevertheless diversified repeatedly. By the late 1930s production included automobile fabrics, railroad and transportation textiles, coated fabrics, cloakings, processed-fiber yarns, carpeting, and rubber-related products.³⁷

World War II accelerated this diversification.

By 1942 approximately 47 percent of Sanford Mills' production was being devoted to government contracts and those contracts represented approximately 57 percent of net sales. The company produced olive-drab Army yarn, underwear fabric, alpaca materials for aviators' clothing, cotton duck for tents, wool linings and coat fabrics, aircraft upholstery, bomber carpeting, and other military textiles.³⁸

Approximately 2,200 people worked in wartime production. The mills therefore became an important part of the national war economy while retaining their civilian textile expertise.³⁹

XI. Industrial Waste and the River

The environmental history of Sanford Mills is less completely documented than its production history.

The mills were intensive users of water. The Mousam River supplied power and became physically incorporated into the industrial landscape. Dyeing, scouring, washing, printing, and finishing necessarily generated wastewater and other industrial residues. The complex included a dedicated Dye House, and the river channel itself was modified to accommodate industrial operations.⁴⁰

Around 1925 the river channel through the mill yard was redirected and stabilized with concrete retaining walls and bridges. The alteration illustrates the degree to which the industrial complex physically reshaped the river.⁴¹

It is important, however, not to impose twentieth- or twenty-first-century environmental assumptions upon nineteenth-century operations. The surviving historical sources do not yet provide a complete year-by-year account of Sanford's treatment and disposal of dyes, solvents, oils, coal ash, and other wastes.

What is documented is the long environmental legacy of the site. Later environmental investigations identified contaminants including asbestos, lead-based paint, PCBs, and other substances associated with industrial activity. Some contamination resulted from post-textile uses of the property, so these materials should not automatically be attributed to Sanford's nineteenth- or early twentieth-century textile operations.⁴²

The most defensible historical conclusion is therefore that Sanford Mills was an intensive water-using and chemical-processing industrial complex whose environmental footprint extended beyond its years of textile manufacture, but that the precise disposal practices of the 1867–1955 period remain an area for further research.

XII. Labor Organization and the Mature Industrial Workforce

By the middle of the twentieth century the relationship between Sanford Mills and its workers had changed profoundly.

The paternalistic industrial world of Thomas Goodall had become a unionized industrial workplace. In 1951 Goodall-Sanford and the United Textile Workers of America entered into a collective-bargaining agreement covering production and maintenance employees at Sanford and Springvale. The agreement included wages, hours, working conditions, seniority, termination, and arbitration provisions.⁴³

The agreement distinguished production and maintenance employees from executives, supervisors, office workers, laboratory workers, and research personnel. This distinction provides an unusually clear picture of the occupational hierarchy inside the mature company.⁴⁴

By 1954 the company employed approximately 3,000 people. Some 3,200 employees qualified for vacation benefits that year. The scale of employment demonstrates how deeply the company had become embedded in Sanford's economy.⁴⁵

The mills had therefore evolved from a family enterprise into a large industrial corporation with a formalized labor-relations system.

XIII. World War II, Merger, and Postwar Adaptation

The Second World War temporarily strengthened Sanford Mills by creating extraordinary demand for military textiles. After the war, however, the company confronted a more difficult environment. Consumer markets changed, synthetic fibers became increasingly important, transportation interiors evolved, and textile production was increasingly competitive on a national scale.

In 1944 the Goodall Worsted Company and Sanford Mills were combined as Goodall-Sanford, Inc. The merger brought together Sanford's plush and transportation specialties with Goodall Worsted's apparel and Palm Beach fabric businesses.⁴⁶

The postwar organization divided manufacturing into several product-oriented divisions. Flat fabrics included draperies, tablecloths, slipcovers, and upholstery. Woolen production served men's and women's clothing. The pile division continued transportation fabrics, while carpeting and garment fabrics represented additional markets.⁴⁷

The company also experimented with blended fibers. By the early 1950s its fabrics incorporated combinations of wool, mohair, cotton, rayon, and nylon.⁴⁸

These efforts show that Sanford Mills did not simply become technologically obsolete. It continued to innovate. The problem was increasingly the economics of textile manufacturing in New England.

XIV. Decline

The decline was gradual rather than sudden.

The Great Depression caused a severe contraction in textile demand. Production fell dramatically by 1932. The company recovered during the later 1930s, and plush production reached an important peak in 1937.⁴⁹

World War II temporarily concealed some of the underlying structural problems by creating enormous government demand. After the war, however, competition intensified.

Southern textile producers increasingly operated with lower labor costs. New England mills faced older buildings, higher wages, transportation costs, and increasingly severe competition from newer plants elsewhere in the United States. Sanford's ability to specialize delayed the decline but could not permanently reverse the economic geography of American textiles.

Government contracts during the Korean War provided another temporary boost. When that demand ended, the underlying problems became more severe.⁵⁰

In 1954 Burlington Mills Corporation acquired Goodall-Sanford. Burlington was one of the country's largest textile corporations and initially contemplated continued production, but the Sanford operation was already experiencing heavy losses. Liquidation followed.⁵¹

XV. The Final Shutdown, 1954–1955

The final chapter can be reconstructed with unusual precision from the federal court record.

By January 1, 1954, Goodall-Sanford employed approximately 3,000 people. By December the company had ceased ordinary production except for completing (“running out”) goods already in process. Mills A and C and the Print Works had shut down by December 29, 1954. Mill B continued until March 15, 1955.⁵²

On December 29, 1954, approximately 1,136 production and maintenance employees were notified that their employment had been terminated. On February 18, 1955, another approximately 263 employees received termination notices.⁵³

The union protested because termination affected more than wages. It threatened seniority rights and benefits including group life insurance, medical and hospitalization coverage, pensions, and vacation pay. The United Textile Workers argued that the collective-bargaining agreement required arbitration of the dispute.⁵⁴

The resulting federal litigation provides a striking final portrait of the company. The remaining employees were largely maintenance and powerhouse workers operating on a “share the work” basis while the machinery was removed or sold.⁵⁵

On April 5, 1955, all production operations at the Sanford and Springvale mills had ended, and the real estate and buildings had been sold.⁵⁶

Thus the answer to the question “When did Sanford Mills close?” depends upon what is meant by closure. The liquidation began in late 1954; major production units closed in December 1954 and March 1955; and all production operations were finished by April 5, 1955.⁵⁷

XVI. The Human Cost of Closure

The closing of Goodall-Sanford was not simply a corporate event.

Sanford had become a classic one-industry community. Thousands of families depended directly upon textile employment, while stores, restaurants, transportation services, landlords, churches, schools, and local government depended indirectly upon the payroll. A contemporary congressional discussion described Sanford as a one-industry city that lost approximately 3,000 jobs when Goodall-Sanford folded.⁵⁸ The figure illustrates the scale of the economic shock.

The shutdown also represented the destruction of accumulated industrial knowledge. A worker who had spent decades learning to sort fibers, operate a specialized loom, dye cloth, maintain machinery, or supervise production possessed skills that could not necessarily be transferred easily to another industry.The closure therefore involved the loss of both jobs and an occupational culture.

XVII. Adaptive Reuse

The physical mills survived their economic collapse.

After the textile operation ended, portions of the complex were sold or leased to other industrial and commercial users. Machinery was removed, floors were subdivided, and spaces originally designed for textile production were adapted for other purposes.

This process preserved many of the buildings even as it changed their function. Adaptive reuse prevented the complete destruction of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century industrial landscape.

The survival of the buildings is especially significant because the mill complex preserves several generations of industrial architecture in one location. The river channel, bridges, brick buildings, reinforced-concrete structures, and surviving ancillary buildings together demonstrate the evolution of textile manufacturing.

Later industrial use also produced environmental problems requiring assessment and remediation. The former mill site therefore became both a historic preservation resource and a brownfield redevelopment challenge.⁵⁹

XVIII. National Register of Historic Places

The Sanford Mills Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. The district contains fourteen contributing buildings and two contributing structures within approximately 7.5 acres.⁶⁰

The National Register identifies Industry, Architecture, and Community Planning and Development as areas of significance. The district encompasses buildings representing multiple phases of industrial development and recognizes the role of the mills in shaping Sanford's physical and economic growth.⁶¹

Architecturally, the district combines late Victorian/Italianate industrial construction with early twentieth-century Modern Movement industrial architecture. The progression from brick and wood construction to reinforced concrete and steel-sash buildings corresponds closely to the evolution from steam and water power to electrified manufacturing.⁶²

The National Register's period of significance extends through 1955 because the buildings embody the industrial development and final decline of the Sanford textile industry. The designation therefore preserves not merely a factory but an industrial landscape that documents almost a century of technological and social change.⁶³

Conclusion

Sanford Mills' history from 1867 to 1955 is a story of adaptation.

Thomas Goodall began with a small water-powered mill producing woolen goods and carriage-related textiles. His successors transformed the operation through technical innovation, most importantly the successful manufacture of mohair plush. That product connected Sanford to the luxury railroad trade, furniture manufacturers, hotels, automobiles, aircraft, and overseas transportation projects.

The company repeatedly followed technological change. Water power was supplemented by steam and eventually transformed by hydroelectricity. Horse-drawn transportation gave way to railroads and automobiles. Natural fibers were joined by rayon and nylon. Civilian production shifted to military contracts during wartime. Goodall Worsted and Sanford Mills eventually merged into Goodall-Sanford, Inc.

The workers who made this transformation possible came from diverse backgrounds and performed highly specialized jobs. English textile workers brought skills from Britain's industrial regions; French Canadian immigrants became a major component of the workforce; women and children participated in mill employment; and mechanics, electricians, dyers, weavers, spinners, sorters, and other specialists operated a remarkably complex production system.

The surviving injury cases provide a glimpse into the risks of that work. William Nelson's 1896 lawsuit belongs to an era dominated by older doctrines of employer liability and contributory negligence. McDougal's Case demonstrates the recognition of a gradual occupational injury under workers' compensation. Robitaille's Case shows the difficulty of proving medical causation even under the modern compensation system. These cases make the workers visible within a history that might otherwise focus only on buildings and production statistics.

Sanford's commercial reach was equally remarkable. Its products were sold throughout Maine and New England, across the United States and Canada, and in documented instances overseas to Japan. By 1928 the company reportedly supplied three-quarters of the railroad plush used in the United States and Canada. By the 1950s its sales operation was centered in New York while manufacturing remained in Sanford.

Yet success could not overcome the structural transformation of American textile manufacturing. Southern competition, labor costs, changing markets, aging infrastructure, and postwar economic pressures eventually overwhelmed the company. Burlington Mills acquired Goodall-Sanford in 1954, but liquidation followed. Production ceased in stages, with all Sanford and Springvale production ended by April 5, 1955.

The end of textile production did not erase the mills' historical importance. The surviving buildings preserve the physical evidence of a manufacturing system that shaped Sanford's economy, population, architecture, neighborhoods, transportation, and social life for nearly ninety years.

Sanford Mills therefore deserves to be understood not merely as an old factory but as a complete industrial landscape. Its history connects Maine to the international fiber trade, American railroad and automobile production, immigrant labor, workers' compensation law, electrical engineering, industrial architecture, wartime manufacturing, environmental change, and the eventual decline of New England textiles. The buildings that remain are the material record of that transformation.

Footnotes

1. United Textile Workers of America, AFL Local 1802 v. Goodall-Sanford, Inc., 131 F. Supp. 767, 769–70 (D. Me. 1955); Goodall-Sanford, Inc. v. United Textile Workers of America, AFL Local 1802, 233 F.2d 104, 105 (1st Cir. 1956).

2. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (Washington, DC: National Park Service, 2009), 10–13.

3. United Textile Workers, 131 F. Supp. at 769–70; Goodall-Sanford, 233 F.2d at 105.

4. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 10.

5. bid., 10–11.

6. bid., 11; Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report of the Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics of the State of Maine, 1899–1900 (Augusta: Kennebec Journal Print, 1900), 95–98.

7. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 10–11.

8. Ibid., 11; Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 97–98.

9. Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 98.

10. Ibid., 98.

11. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 11–12.

12. Ibid., 11.

13. Ibid.

14. Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 96–97.

15. Ibid., 95.

16. Ibid., 97.

17. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 12.

18. Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 97–98.

19. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 12.

20. Ibid., 12–13.

21. Ibid., 10–12.

22. Ibid., 12.

23. Ibid., 12–13.

24. Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Goodall-Sanford, Inc., textile collection records, 1951.

25. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 12.

26. Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 96–97.

27. Lewis Wickes Hine, “Noon Hour, Sanford Mfg. Co., Sanford, Me. Some Young Boys and Girls Employed Here,” 1909, photograph, National Child Labor Committee Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

28. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 2, 10–13.

29. Nelson v. Sanford Mills, 89 Me. 219, 36 A. 79, 79 (1896).

30. McDougal's Case, 127 Me. 491, 491–93, 144 A. 446 (1929).

31. Ibid., 491–92.

32. Ibid., 492–93.

33. Robitaille's Case, 140 Me. 121, 121–27, 34 A.2d 473 (1943).

34. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 3–4.

35. Ibid., 3–6.

36. Ibid., 5–7.

37. bid., 12–13.

38. bid., 13.

39. bid.

40. bid., 3–7.

41. Ibid., 7.

42. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Sanford Mill Site, Sanford, Maine, Brownfields Success in New England (Boston: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2011).

43. United Textile Workers, 131 F. Supp. at 768–69.

44. Ibid., 768.

45. Ibid., 769.

46. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 13.

47. bid.

48. Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Goodall-Sanford, Inc., textile collection records, 1951.

49. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 13.

50. Ibid.

51. bid.; United Textile Workers, 131 F. Supp. at 769–70.

52. United Textile Workers, 131 F. Supp. at 769–70.

53. Ibid., 770.

54. Goodall-Sanford, 233 F.2d at 105.

55. United Textile Workers, 131 F. Supp. at 770.

56. Ibid.; Goodall-Sanford, 233 F.2d at 105.

57. Goodall-Sanford, 233 F.2d at 105.

58. Congressional Record, 84th Cong., 1st sess., 1955, extension of remarks concerning the textile industry and Sanford, Maine.

59. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Sanford Mill Site, Sanford, Maine.

60. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 1–3.

61. bid., 1, 8–9.

62. bid., 3–7.

63. bid., 8–9.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Hine, Lewis Wickes. “Noon Hour, Sanford Mfg. Co., Sanford, Me. Some Young Boys and Girls Employed Here.” 1909. Photograph. National Child Labor Committee Collection. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics. Report of the Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics of the State of Maine, 1899–1900. Augusta: Kennebec Journal Print, 1900.

McDougal's Case. 127 Me. 491, 144 A. 446. Maine Supreme Judicial Court. 1929.

Nelson v. Sanford Mills. 89 Me. 219, 36 A. 79. Maine Supreme Judicial Court. 1896.

Robitaille's Case. 140 Me. 121, 34 A.2d 473. Maine Supreme Judicial Court. 1943.

United Textile Workers of America, AFL Local 1802 v. Goodall-Sanford, Inc. 131 F. Supp. 767. U.S. District Court for the District of Maine. 1955.

Goodall-Sanford, Inc. v. United Textile Workers of America, AFL Local 1802. 233 F.2d 104. U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. 1956.

Sanford Weekly Tribune. Sanford, Maine. 1895–1899.

Sanford Tribune. Sanford, Maine. 1899–1955.

Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Goodall-Sanford, Inc. Textile Collection. Washington, DC.

United States Congress. Congressional Record. 84th Cong., 1st sess. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1955.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. Sanford Mill Site, Sanford, Maine. Brownfields Success in New England. Boston: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2011.

Secondary and Historical Sources

Maine Historic Preservation Commission. Sanford Mills Historic District, Sanford, York County, Maine. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. Washington, DC: National Park Service, 2009.

National Park Service. National Register of Historic Places: Sanford Mills Historic District. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, 2009.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. Brownfields 2009 Assessment and Cleanup Grant Fact Sheet: Sanford, Maine. Washington, DC: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2009.

Archival and Newspaper Collections Consulted

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. National Child Labor Committee Collection.

National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Goodall-Sanford textile and fabric collection.

Springvale Public Library Digital Archives. Sanford Weekly Tribune, Sanford Tribune, and Sanford Tribune and Advocate, 1895–1955.

Maine State Library and Maine State Legislature Legislative Reference Office. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century Maine industrial and labor reports.

Sanford, Maine, emerged as an industrial city through the manufacture of woolen textiles, and central to this transformation was the International Woolen Company. Constructed in 1923, the International Woolen Company mill was the largest single building in Sanford’s mill yard and one of the last major textile plants built during New England’s woolen boom. Designed for efficiency and volume, the massive brick complex housed every stage of woolen production—from raw fiber to finished cloth—under one roof, embodying the fully mechanized, capital-intensive phase of the region’s textile industry and the decades of industrial development that had already made Sanford a nationally significant manufacturing center.

The mill represented the fully mechanized phase of textile manufacturing, relying on electric and steam power rather than water alone. Its size and layout reflected Sanford’s role as a national producer of specialty woolen fabrics, not a small local mill.

The International Woolen Company and the Making of Industrial Sanford

Sanford, Maine, emerged as an industrial city through the manufacture of woolen textiles. Central to this transformation was the International Woolen Company, whose massive mill complex—constructed in 1923—stood as the largest single structure in Sanford’s downtown mill yard and represented the final, fully mechanized phase of New England’s woolen industry.¹ Although it arrived later than the city’s earliest mills, International Woolen embodied decades of accumulated industrial knowledge, capital investment, and labor organization that had already made Sanford a nationally significant textile center.

The foundations of Sanford’s textile economy were laid in 1867 with the establishment of Goodall Mills, which harnessed the power of the Mousam River and railroad connections to produce woolen fabrics for national markets.² By the early twentieth century, Sanford mills specialized in high-value woolen and worsted goods rather than low-cost textiles. Among their most important products were mohair plush fabrics used in railroad cars, theaters, hotels, and automobiles; upholstery fabrics; carriage and automobile robes; blankets; and finished dyed cloth sold to commercial and industrial customers.³ Mohair plush was particularly significant: by the 1920s, Sanford mills were among the leading suppliers of this fabric in North America, a distinction that required specialized machinery and skilled finishing labor.⁴

The International Woolen Mill was designed for scale and efficiency. It operated as a vertically integrated plant, processing raw wool into finished fabric within a single complex. The mill contained carding machines to clean and align fibers, spinning frames to produce yarn, and hundreds of power looms to weave cloth.⁵ Large steam-heated dye vats allowed wool and woven fabric to be dyed in bulk, while shearing and nap-raising machines produced the dense, uniform surfaces required for plush and upholstery fabrics. Mills of this size typically ran continuously in shifts, producing many tons of finished fabric each week at peak output. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps and preservation records indicate that facilities like International Woolen operated dozens of carding and spinning machines alongside extensive weaving and finishing departments, reflecting the capital-intensive nature of twentieth-century woolen manufacturing.⁶

This industrial output depended on a large and disciplined workforce. At its height, Sanford’s textile industry employed between 2,000 and 3,600 workers, forming the backbone of the local economy.⁷ Although precise employment figures for the International Woolen Company alone do not survive, mills of comparable size typically employed several hundred workers distributed across spinning, weaving, dyeing, finishing, maintenance, and administrative departments. Women constituted a substantial portion of the workforce, particularly in weaving and finishing rooms, while men predominated in dye houses, mechanical repair, and supervisory roles.⁸

Sanford’s mill workforce reflected successive waves of immigration and migration. French Canadian workers formed the largest group in the early twentieth century, joined by Irish and English descendants of earlier industrial labor and later by immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Textile work offered steady employment in a region with few alternatives, but labor conditions were demanding. Wages varied significantly by occupation and skill level within the woolen industry. Nationally, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 1916 skilled loom fixers in woolen and worsted manufacturing averaged $20.72 per week, while female weavers averaged $14.72 per week, reflecting the specialized skills and gender divisions that shaped textile labor.⁹ Workdays commonly extended for long hours, and factory inspections documented concerns involving workplace safety, ventilation, sanitation, and other industrial conditions.¹⁰

Housing reinforced the mills’ central role in daily life. Mill owners in Sanford supported the construction of worker housing within walking distance of the factories, selling homes at cost or offering affordable rents.¹¹ These neighborhoods fostered close social and cultural ties, but they also bound entire communities to the fortunes of the textile industry. When mills prospered, neighborhoods thrived; when production declined, hardship spread rapidly.

That decline came swiftly after World War II. By the early 1950s, Sanford’s textile economy collapsed as manufacturing shifted to the American South and overseas, where labor costs were lower and mills were newer.¹² Thousands of jobs disappeared in a matter of years, and most of Sanford’s mills fell silent. The International Woolen facility outlasted many others, continuing limited wool processing and dyeing operations into the late twentieth century. Environmental and regulatory records confirm industrial use at the site into the 1990s, leaving behind contamination that later required remediation.¹³

The International Woolen Company thus occupies a distinctive place in Sanford’s history. It was both a product of the city’s industrial maturity and one of the last active links to a manufacturing economy that once defined daily life for thousands of residents. Its massive brick walls, specialized machinery, and long-lived operations testify to the scale and sophistication of Maine’s woolen industry, while its eventual abandonment reflects the broader transformation of American manufacturing in the twentieth century.

Footnotes

1. City of Sanford, Maine, Sanford Millyard, accessed January 12, 2026.

2. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, “Sanford, Maine,” accessed January 12, 2026.

3. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District National Register of Historic Places Nomination, pp. 1–3.

4. Ibid., pp. 2–3.

5. Ibid., pp. 5–8.

6. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, Sanford, Maine, Mill District; Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District National Register of Historic Places Nomination, pp. 5–8.

7. “From thriving industry to ‘no man’s land’: Sanford looks to revive mill district,” Portland Press Herald, October 10, 2022.

8. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District National Register of Historic Places Nomination, pp. 2–3.

9. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wages and Hours of Labor in Woolen and Worsted Goods Manufacturing, 1916, Bulletin No. 238 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1918), pp. 5–20, 24–31.

10. Maine Department of Labor and Industry, Fourth Biennial Report 1917–1918 (Augusta: State of Maine, 1919), pp. 14–16.

11. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, “Sanford, Maine,” accessed January 12, 2026.

12. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District National Register of Historic Places Nomination, pp. 10–12.

13. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, RCRA Corrective Action Site MED057977092, accessed January 12, 2026.

Bibliography

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Sanford, Maine. Accessed January 12, 2026.

City of Sanford, Maine. Sanford Millyard. Accessed January 12, 2026.

Maine Historic Preservation Commission. Sanford Mills Historic District National Register of Historic Places Nomination.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. Sanford, Maine, Mill District.

“From thriving industry to ‘no man’s land’: Sanford looks to revive mill district.” Portland Press Herald. October 10, 2022.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Historical Wages in Textile Manufacturing: New England.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. RCRA Corrective Action Site: MED057977092.

Sanford Mills, 1867–1955: Industry, Production, Workers, Markets, and Decline_2

Introduction

The history of Sanford Mills is the history of a nineteenth-century Maine textile enterprise that repeatedly reinvented itself in response to changing technology, transportation, consumer demand, and competition. Established by Thomas Goodall in Sanford in 1867, the mills began with woolen fabrics, lap robes, carriage robes, and blankets. Within two decades, however, the Goodall family had developed a nationally important specialty in mohair plush, a luxurious pile fabric that became closely associated with railroad-car upholstery, furniture, and later automobiles. By the early twentieth century, Sanford Mills had become one of the largest specialty textile manufacturers in the United States, employing hundreds and eventually thousands of workers and selling products throughout North America and, in documented cases, overseas.¹

The physical complex changed almost as dramatically as its products. The first buildings were small, predominantly wood-frame structures dependent upon the Mousam River. By the early twentieth century, the company was replacing these structures with large brick, concrete, and steel-sash manufacturing buildings. Power likewise evolved from water wheels to supplementary steam and then to electricity generated at Great Falls on the Mousam River. Production moved from carriage goods to railroad upholstery, automotive fabrics, clothing materials, military textiles, carpeting, draperies, and blended synthetic fabrics.²

Yet the mills were also a workplace. Their history includes skilled English and French Canadian textile workers, women and children, specialized mechanics and electricians, workplace injuries, labor organization, and changing systems of compensation. The mills helped create neighborhoods and institutions in Sanford, but they also produced the environmental legacy characteristic of large dyeing, finishing, and textile complexes. Their final years were marked by declining competitiveness, Southern textile competition, labor costs, liquidation, and the disappearance of textile manufacturing from Sanford in 1955.³

Thomas Goodall and the Founding of the Sanford Mills

Thomas Goodall brought to Sanford both textile experience and a clear understanding of the commercial possibilities of specialized woolen goods. Born in Yorkshire, England, Goodall had learned the woolen trade before coming to the United States. In Troy, New Hampshire, he became associated with the manufacture of horse blankets and developed a fitted blanket known as the “New Hampshire Blanket.” During the Civil War, his blankets found a military market. He later returned temporarily to England, where he exported plush carriage robes to America and Canada.⁴

In 1867 Goodall returned to the United States in search of a suitable manufacturing site. Sanford offered precisely the resource he needed: substantial water power on the Mousam River. At the time Sanford was still a small rural community. There was no railroad connection and the industrial landscape consisted primarily of sawmills, a grist mill, and a small flannel mill. Goodall purchased the existing mills, twelve acres of land, and the water rights associated with the two local dams. The modest flannel mill became the foundation of his new enterprise.⁵

Goodall's earliest Sanford production consisted of woolen fabrics, especially seal-skin pile fabrics and kersey, a water-resistant wool fabric. The goods were dyed and printed, and initially some printing was performed outside the plant. Finished material was sent to Boston to be made into carriage blankets before Goodall gradually brought more of the finishing and manufacturing process into Sanford. By 1869 he had recruited Joseph Travis, an experienced English dyer, to establish a dyeing and printing department. The goal was not simply to produce woolen cloth cheaply but to make richly colored and decorated textiles capable of competing with European goods.⁶

Production expanded rapidly. The value of goods produced at the Sanford mill rose from approximately $45,456 in 1868 to more than $75,000 in 1869 and $90,000 in 1870. In 1873 Goodall added another mill building, and in 1877 the enterprise was formally incorporated as Sanford Mills. The organization subsequently expanded through the addition and consolidation of related Goodall enterprises, including the Mousam River Mills and the Goodall Manufacturing Company.⁷

From Water Power to Steam and Electricity

Power was fundamental to Sanford Mills because textile production required continuous mechanical energy for spinning, weaving, carding, shearing, washing, fulling, dyeing, and finishing. During its first decades the plant relied principally upon the Mousam River. The river's flow, however, was not sufficient to support the increasingly large number of machines and looms installed as the business expanded.⁸

The first response was the addition of steam power. By the mid-1880s, a boiler house supplied supplementary power from coal-fired boilers when water flow was inadequate. Engines were connected to the same line shafts driven by the water wheels, allowing the company to combine traditional water power with steam. The transition was therefore gradual rather than an abrupt abandonment of the river.⁹

A much more consequential transition came in the late 1890s. In 1898 a dam and hydroelectric generating plant were constructed at Great Falls on the Mousam River in the neighboring town of Kennebunk, roughly eight miles downstream from Sanford. In February 1899 the Sanford Mills machinery began operating on electricity generated at Great Falls. Water power continued to be used to some extent, while steam remained important at the Goodall Worsted operation.¹⁰

This arrangement represented an important technological transformation. Instead of requiring every mill building to depend directly upon a water wheel or local steam engine, power could be generated at a more advantageous hydraulic site and transmitted electrically to the mills. A contemporary Maine industrial report described the electrical system as replacing a substantial amount of steam power at Sanford and noted the resulting reduction in coal consumption.¹¹

The Goodalls' control of power also extended beyond the mill gates. Their industrial interests included the Sanford Light & Water Company and the Sanford Power Company, while the family was involved in the local electric railway system. Industrial power, transportation, and municipal infrastructure were consequently intertwined with the Goodall family's development of Sanford.¹²

The Emergence of Mohair Plush

The decisive technological and commercial breakthrough came in the 1880s with mohair plush. Mohair is the long, lustrous fiber of the Angora goat, and its combination of sheen, resilience, and ability to accept dye made it particularly suitable for pile fabrics. In the early 1880s France and Germany dominated the production of high-quality mohair plush. George Goodall, however, succeeded in developing a power loom capable of producing high-quality mohair plush in Sanford in 1883.¹³

The achievement transformed the company's prospects. Goodall Brothers, later the Goodall Manufacturing Company, became the first American producer of mohair plush on a large commercial scale. The new fabric found markets in New York, Boston, and the American West. Its principal applications included furniture upholstery and, increasingly, railroad-car interiors.¹⁴

The production process was complex. Mohair was sorted and prepared, scoured, woven, dried, sheared, embossed, steamed, packed, and shipped. The plush loom created the characteristic raised pile by weaving around steel rods and cutting the loops as the rods were withdrawn. Sanford's printing department could then apply elaborate patterns to carriage robes, mats, and other fabrics. The company became known for brilliant colors and highly finished decorative surfaces.¹⁵

The raw materials came from a remarkably wide geographic area. Much of the finest mohair came from Asiatic Turkey, while additional supplies came from California and Oregon. Alpaca came from South America, and wool arrived from states including Montana and Texas. Contemporary observers noted that nearly the entire American production of mohair went to Sanford.¹⁶

The scale of production by the turn of the century demonstrates the success of the strategy. In the year reported by Maine's industrial commissioner, Sanford Mills produced carriage robes, mohair plush, and horse blankets valued at approximately $1 million. The company averaged 693 workers: 416 men, 156 women, 72 boys, and 49 girls. Its associated Goodall Worsted Company produced more than $1.2 million in worsted goods and employed another 718 people. Together the two Sanford textile enterprises employed 1,479 operatives and produced approximately $2.225 million worth of goods annually.¹⁷

Products, Customers, and Markets

Sanford Mills developed a customer base that extended far beyond Maine. The company's early carriage robes and blankets served the horse-drawn transportation economy, but its mohair plush made it a supplier to other manufacturers and transportation companies. The mills made plush for the lining and seats of Pullman railroad cars, and contemporary reports stated that the demand for such material regularly exceeded supply.¹⁸

Railroad upholstery became one of Sanford's defining markets. By 1928 the mills reportedly supplied approximately 75 percent of all railroad plush used in the United States and Canada. The railroad market was especially important because the decline of plush in furniture did not destroy Sanford's specialty: the company's established reputation for durable, attractive upholstery enabled it to remain a leading producer of transportation textiles.¹⁹

Sanford's market also became international. A Maine industrial report recorded that the company had completed plush for electric railway cars recently introduced in Japan, including the plush for the Japanese emperor's private car. This is unusually direct evidence of an overseas customer and demonstrates that Sanford's products could compete in highly prestigious international applications.²⁰ Canada was also part of the company's core market, particularly in railroad upholstery, although the evidence presently available does not justify assigning a specific percentage of total sales to overseas markets beyond the documented North American and Japanese trade.²¹

The automobile revolution initially threatened the carriage-oriented portion of Sanford's business but ultimately created another large market. Beginning by at least 1914, Sanford Mills plush was supplied to Fisher Body Corporation for automobile upholstery. Later, Sanford textiles were used in automobiles associated with Cadillac, Kissel, Buick, Oakland, Chrysler, and other manufacturers.²²

The Goodall Worsted Company supplied a different but complementary customer base. It produced worsted yarns and fine fabrics for men's and women's clothing, cloakings, and garment linings. By the twentieth century, the Goodall interests were therefore selling textiles to clothing manufacturers as well as transportation and furniture industries.²³

One of the best-known products of the Goodall Worsted operation was Palm Beach cloth, a lightweight summer fabric that became a nationally recognized consumer brand. Its success demonstrates how the Goodall enterprise could move from supplying industrial customers to participating in a much broader consumer market. The textile produced in Sanford could become a finished garment marketed throughout the United States.²⁴

By the 1930s Sanford Mills had therefore developed a diversified market structure. Its products served railroads, automobiles, hotels, aircraft, furniture and upholstery manufacturers, apparel producers, and other textile businesses. In 1937 approximately four million yards of plush were produced, and the company employed roughly 2,000 people.²⁵

The Workforce and Working Life

The Sanford Mills workforce differed in important ways from the classic stereotype of the New England textile mill populated primarily by young Yankee women. The Goodalls deliberately recruited skilled textile workers from Yorkshire, England, many of whom had been apprenticed in woolen factories. During the 1890s French Canadian immigrants increasingly arrived in Sanford, initially taking less skilled jobs and gradually moving upward through the occupational hierarchy. By 1910 foreign-born residents constituted approximately 37 percent of Sanford's population, and French Canadians remained an important part of the mill workforce well into the twentieth century.²⁶

The work itself required a wide range of occupations. Textile production depended upon spinners, weavers, carders, sorters, dyers, printers, shearing and finishing workers, packers, mechanics, machinists, electricians, engineers, firemen, maintenance workers, laboratory personnel, clerks, supervisors, and shipping workers. The physical division of the mills reflected this specialization. Mill #1 contained picking, spinning, carding, and weaving functions; Mill #5 became the principal mohair-plush weaving building; other buildings contained dyeing, finishing, drying, and shipping operations.²⁷

The skill requirements were substantial. A contemporary Maine report emphasized that employees needed to be intelligent, highly trained, and expert in their particular operations. In the sorting room, for example, workers graded wool and mohair according to length and fineness, a process requiring considerable experience because the quality of the final textile depended on accurate sorting.²⁸

At the same time, the workforce included children. Lewis Hine's 1909 National Child Labor Committee photograph is direct evidence. The caption identifies the location as “Sanford Mfg. Co., Sanford, Me.” and states that “some young boys and girls” were employed there. The image is cataloged as Hine no. 706 and belongs to the National Child Labor Committee collection at the Library of Congress.²⁹ The photograph should not be used to assign exact ages to the children because the surviving caption does not provide them. It does, however, establish contemporary photographic evidence that young boys and girls were employed at an establishment identified by Hine as Sanford Manufacturing Company.³⁰

This evidence should be handled carefully because the Goodall industrial system contained more than one Sanford-area textile enterprise. The National Register nomination explicitly distinguishes Sanford Mills from the Goodall Worsted Company as separate facilities manufacturing different products, even though both were operated by the Goodall family.³¹ Likewise, the older Sanford Manufacturing Company/Springvale Cotton Mill later became associated with the Goodall-controlled Maine Alpaca operation. The Hine caption therefore should not automatically be treated as evidence for every Goodall mill in Sanford.

The Goodalls also attempted to shape the residential environment around the mills. They developed the Ridgeway and Palm Beach residential subdivisions in the early twentieth century, offering workers opportunities to purchase homes on reasonable terms. The company's influence thus extended beyond the workplace into the physical organization of the town.³²

Workplace Injuries and Workers' Compensation

The legal record provides a second way to understand working conditions. In 1896 William L. Nelson brought an action against Sanford Mills arising from a workplace injury. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court's decision is important less for the precise mechanics of the accident than for what it reveals about the legal environment before the modern workers' compensation system. The court applied the prevailing doctrine under which a worker could be barred from recovery where his own conduct was considered sufficiently unjustifiable or foolhardy, even when employer negligence may also have contributed.³³

By the 1920s the legal landscape had changed. In McDougal's Case, decided in 1929, a Sanford Mills electrician had been injured while working on the ceiling of one of the mills. On February 5, 1928, he was “swinging” conduit pipe while standing on a ladder. His shin rested against the rung above for a considerable period. Later that evening his leg became severely swollen and he was disabled for weeks.³⁴

The case illustrates the kinds of hazards faced by specialized maintenance workers. The injury did not result from a spectacular machinery failure. Instead, prolonged pressure and chafing produced a disabling condition. The Industrial Accident Commission found the injury compensable, and the Maine Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding that an accident need not be instantaneous to qualify as an accidental injury under the compensation law.³⁵

A later case, Robitaille's Case in 1943, involved George A. Robitaille, a regular Sanford Mills employee who was also an auxiliary Sanford firefighter. While responding to a fire he suffered first- and second-degree burns to his head, hands, and arms. Sixteen days later he died of coronary thrombosis. His widow sought compensation on the theory that the physical exertion, stress, or burns had caused or accelerated his death. The Industrial Accident Commission rejected the claim, and the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed because the evidence did not establish the required causal connection.³⁶

These cases demonstrate that industrial injury was not limited to obvious machinery accidents. Textile work involved machinery, ladders, electrical systems, heat, chemicals, fire, repetitive operations, and maintenance hazards. They also show the growing importance of workers' compensation as the legal framework shifted away from the nineteenth-century negligence system.

Architecture and Industrial Operations

The surviving Sanford Mills complex reflects several generations of industrial architecture. The National Register district contains fourteen contributing buildings and two contributing structures on approximately 7.5 acres. The earliest surviving building is the brick Boiler House, dating from about 1882; most of the earliest structures built before 1910 were wood-frame buildings.³⁷

The early mills were utilitarian rather than architecturally elaborate. Their wood construction reflected nineteenth-century textile practice, while the brick Boiler House represented the increasing importance of fire-resistant construction and steam power. The Print Shop, built in 1889, is one of the two surviving manufacturing buildings from the first major period of Sanford Mills construction.³⁸

Around 1910 the company began a massive modernization program. Older wood buildings were replaced or supplemented by larger fireproof structures of brick and, increasingly, reinforced concrete. George A. Clark, Sanford Mills' chief engineer, and later his son Frank W. Clark were responsible for several important designs. The early twentieth-century brick mills used rectangular plans, segmental-arched windows, steel sash, corbelled brickwork, and heavy structural systems capable of supporting vibrating machinery.³⁹

After 1919 the architectural language changed again. Mills #2, #3, and #4 were large four-story reinforced-concrete and brick structures associated with Turner Construction Company. Their exteriors featured tall concrete piers, horizontal brick panels, and large multi-pane steel windows. Their interiors were made possible by long steel beams and braced steel columns, creating large open floors suitable for modern machinery.⁴⁰

The architecture therefore records the industrial evolution of the company: wood and water power in the nineteenth century; brick and steam in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; and reinforced concrete, steel, electric power, and mechanized mass production after 1910.

Production at Its Peak

The 1920s represented the high point of Sanford Mills' national importance. By 1928 the company reportedly supplied three-quarters of the railroad plush used in the United States and Canada. Annual plush production rose from approximately 384,800 yards in 1892 to roughly four million yards by 1937.⁴¹

The 1930s also demonstrate the company's ability to diversify. Between 1937 and 1941, Sanford Mills production included fabrics for automobiles, railroad and other transportation uses, coated fabrics, cloakings, processed-fiber yarns, specialty carpeting, and rubber rolls. The percentages reported in the National Register nomination show how thoroughly the company had shifted away from dependence on a single product: automobile fabrics represented the largest category, while railroad and transportation goods remained significant.⁴²

The automobile market was therefore not simply a replacement for the carriage market. It became the dominant direction of the company's production. Sanford's ability to adapt its mohair and pile-fabric expertise to automotive interiors allowed the mills to survive a major technological transition that destroyed many carriage-related businesses.

World War I and World War II

Wartime demand provided another major turning point. During World War I, Sanford Mills modified production to manufacture blankets and yarn for military use. The larger wartime transformation came during World War II. Sanford Mills secured government contracts and converted a substantial portion of its production to military textiles.⁴³

By November 1942, approximately 47 percent of Sanford Mills' production was reportedly being used to fulfill government contracts, representing 57 percent of company net sales. Products included olive-drab Army yarn, underwear fabric, alpaca yarn and fabric for aviators' suits, cotton duck for tents, wool linings and coat fabric, upholstery for trainer aircraft, carpet for bombers, and specially treated fabric used for military “ski climbers.” Approximately 2,200 people were employed in wartime production.⁴⁴

Wartime production demonstrated both the flexibility and the limitations of the Sanford system. The mills possessed the machinery, skilled labor, and organizational capacity to shift rapidly toward government specifications. By the end of 1943 wartime production had peaked, and the company began converting again to civilian production.⁴⁵

The 1944 Merger and Postwar Products

In 1944 Goodall Worsted Company and Sanford Mills merged to form Goodall-Sanford, Inc. This merger brought together the company's major product traditions: Sanford's mohair plush, pile fabrics, upholstery, and transportation textiles with Goodall Worsted's clothing fabrics and Palm Beach cloth.⁴⁶

The postwar company divided production into specialized divisions. The Flat Fabrics Division produced draperies, tablecloths, slipcovers, and smooth upholstery; the Woolen Division produced fabrics for women's coats and men's and women's suits; the Pile Division produced transportation fabrics; the Carpeting Division made rugs; and the Goodall Division continued garment fabrics.⁴⁷

The company also experimented with increasingly sophisticated fiber combinations. By the early 1950s Goodall-Sanford was producing fabrics combining wool, mohair, cotton, rayon, and nylon for automobile upholstery, clothing, and furnishings. These products demonstrate that the company was not technologically frozen in the nineteenth century. It was actively adapting to the rise of synthetic fibers and changing consumer expectations.⁴⁸

Nevertheless, technological adaptation could not solve the company's larger economic problems.

Decline and Closure

The decline began before the final shutdown. By the late 1920s cheaper plush manufactured elsewhere was taking market share from Sanford. The stock-market crash and Great Depression then devastated production. The National Register record reports that production fell approximately 75 percent by 1932. The company recovered after 1935, and plush production reached its historical peak in 1937, but the competitive environment had fundamentally changed.⁴⁹

The postwar period presented another set of difficulties. Southern textile manufacturers increasingly competed on lower labor costs, while Sanford faced rising labor costs and the structural problems of an older New England textile center. Goodall-Sanford received government contracts during the Korean War, but the end of the Korean conflict in 1953 removed another source of demand.⁵⁰

In 1954 Burlington Mills Corporation, described as the world's largest textile company, purchased Goodall-Sanford. Burlington initially intended to continue manufacturing in Sanford, but the strategy failed. The company entered liquidation, and production was progressively terminated.⁵¹

The closure was not a single-day event. Approximately 1,136 production and maintenance workers associated with Mills A, B, C, and the Print Works were terminated in December 1954, with another approximately 263 workers terminated in February 1955. Mill B shut down on March 15, 1955. A federal court record states that by April 5, 1955, all production operations at the Sanford and Springvale mills had ended and the real estate and buildings had been sold.⁵²

The scale of the economic collapse was enormous. In 1952, 5,192 Sanford residents were employed in manufacturing, of whom 4,294 worked for textile companies. By 1955 only 1,318 residents remained in manufacturing and just 195 textile workers remained.⁵³ The closure therefore represented not merely the failure of a company but the collapse of the economic system around which modern Sanford had developed.

Industrial Waste and Environmental Practices

The environmental history of Sanford Mills requires some caution because the surviving historical record is much richer on production than on waste disposal. The mills depended upon dyeing, printing, washing, fulling, scouring, finishing, and other processes that necessarily generated wastewater and industrial residues. The physical complex also contained a dedicated Dye House and a heavily engineered river channel, demonstrating the scale of water use and hydraulic manipulation.⁵⁴

The Mousam River was not merely a source of power; it was physically incorporated into the mill system. Around 1925 the river channel through the mill yard was redirected with concrete retaining walls and bridges, partly to improve safety and access.⁵⁵ The available historical sources, however, do not yet establish a comprehensive account of how dyes, cleaning agents, oils, coal ash, or other industrial wastes were disposed of during each period of operation. It would be inappropriate to project modern environmental standards backward without documentation.

What can be established is the persistence of industrial contamination after the textile era. Later industrial uses of portions of the former mill complex contributed additional contaminants. Environmental assessments of the former Sanford Mill site have identified asbestos, lead-based paint, semi-volatile organic compounds, PCBs, and other contaminants. A former dye-house building was later used for aircraft-component manufacturing, and environmental investigations found contamination associated with its subsequent industrial history.⁵⁶

Thus the most defensible conclusion is that Sanford Mills was an intensive water-using and chemical-processing textile complex whose environmental legacy continued after textile manufacturing ended, but that the precise waste-disposal practices of the 1867–1955 period require additional archival and environmental research.

Labor Organization and the Final Years

By the final years, the workforce was increasingly organized within a modern industrial labor-relations system. A 1951 collective-bargaining agreement between Goodall-Sanford and the United Textile Workers represented production and maintenance employees at Sanford and Springvale. The agreement covered wages, hours, working conditions, seniority, termination, and arbitration.⁵⁷

The labor record becomes particularly revealing during liquidation. The union challenged the company's termination of workers as the mills shut down. The company argued that the complete cessation of operations was a management decision outside the collective-bargaining agreement. The federal court ultimately held that the dispute was subject to arbitration.⁵⁸

This final labor conflict illustrates how far the relationship between Sanford Mills and its workforce had evolved since Thomas Goodall began operating the first small mill in 1867. The early enterprise had depended upon paternal management, skilled immigrants, family leadership, and a growing industrial community. By 1954 the company was a large corporation operating under a formal collective-bargaining agreement and facing organized workers as it liquidated its plants.

Adaptive Reuse and the Afterlife of the Mills

The physical mills survived the end of textile manufacturing even though the original industrial system did not. After Burlington sold the property in 1955, the former mill buildings were sold or leased individually to smaller enterprises. The buildings therefore entered a prolonged period of adaptive reuse rather than disappearing immediately.⁵⁹

This transition changed the character of the complex. Textile machinery was removed or sold, production spaces were subdivided, and some buildings were adapted for entirely different forms of manufacturing and commercial activity. Other structures were demolished, particularly portions of the former Mill C and the former Goodall Worsted complex. The surviving buildings nevertheless preserve the physical organization of a major New England textile center.⁶⁰

The later history also created environmental and redevelopment challenges. Portions of the former mill property became brownfield sites requiring environmental assessment and cleanup. Redevelopment efforts have sought to combine preservation with housing, retail, commercial uses, and other forms of adaptive reuse.⁶¹

National Register Status

The Sanford Mills Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. The district encompasses approximately 7.5 acres and includes fourteen contributing buildings and two contributing structures, including surviving mill buildings, offices, the engineered river channel, bridges, and related industrial structures.⁶²

The National Register recognizes the district under the areas of Industry, Architecture, and Community Planning and Development. Its period of significance is identified as 1882–1955, beginning with the earliest surviving mill building and ending when Burlington Mills sold the complex and textile manufacturing in Sanford had largely disappeared.⁶³

Architecturally, the district is significant because it preserves several stages of industrial construction. The early buildings are primarily wood-frame structures; the 1880s Boiler House represents the importance of steam power and fire-resistant construction; and the 1910–1925 rebuilding program introduced large brick and reinforced-concrete mills with steel windows and expansive machinery floors.⁶⁴

The National Register designation therefore recognizes more than a collection of old factory buildings. It preserves the physical evidence of the industrial system that transformed Sanford from a small rural community into a major textile town.

Conclusion

From 1867 to the 1950s, Sanford Mills was remarkably successful at adapting to technological and commercial change. Thomas Goodall began with woolen goods, carriage robes, and blankets, but the company found its greatest success in the development of American mohair plush. The mills then followed the transportation revolution from horses to railroads and automobiles, while the associated Goodall Worsted enterprise expanded into clothing fabrics and Palm Beach cloth. During the two world wars, the company converted production toward military requirements; after World War II it experimented with blended and synthetic fibers.⁶⁵

The production system was inseparable from the workforce that operated it. Skilled English immigrants, French Canadian workers, women, men, young workers, mechanics, electricians, dyers, weavers, spinners, sorters, and maintenance employees created the knowledge and labor that made Sanford's specialty textiles possible. Their experiences included both opportunity and danger, as demonstrated by child-labor documentation and workers' compensation cases.⁶⁶

Sanford's market was similarly expansive. The company sold into Maine and New England but increasingly served a national customer base that included railroad, furniture, automobile, apparel, hotel, aircraft, and government markets. Canada formed part of its core North American transportation market, while Japan provides direct evidence of overseas sales. By the twentieth century, the company was no longer simply a Maine mill selling locally; it was a nationally and internationally connected textile manufacturer whose products entered major industrial supply chains.⁶⁷

The final collapse was therefore not caused by a lack of industrial achievement. Sanford Mills had repeatedly demonstrated an ability to innovate. Its problem was structural: the advantages of an established New England textile center were increasingly outweighed by lower-cost Southern production, changing markets, high labor costs, aging infrastructure, and intense postwar competition. The liquidation of 1954–55 brought an end to textile manufacturing on the scale that had defined Sanford for nearly ninety years.⁶⁸

Yet the mills did not disappear. Their buildings, water channels, surviving machinery spaces, neighborhoods, worker housing, and civic institutions remain physical evidence of the industrial world that Thomas Goodall created. The National Register designation recognizes precisely this continuity. Sanford Mills survives not as a functioning textile factory but as an industrial landscape—a record of technology, labor, migration, commerce, architecture, environmental change, and the transformation of an American manufacturing town.⁶⁹

Footnotes

1. Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report of the Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics of the State of Maine, 1899–1900 (Augusta: Kennebec Journal Print, 1900), 88–92; Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, 2009, 10–13.

2. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 10–13.

3. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 13; United Textile Workers of America, AFL Local 1802 v. Goodall-Sanford, Inc., 131 F. Supp. 767, 768–70 (D. Me. 1955).

4. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 10.

5. Ibid., 10–11.

6. Ibid., 11; Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 95–96.

7. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 11; Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 95.

8. Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 94–98.

9. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 11; Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 98.

10. Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 98.

11. Ibid., 98.

12. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 12.

13. Ibid., 11.

14. bid., 11–12; Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 96–98.

15. Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 96–97.

16. bid., 96–97.

17. Ibid., 95.

18. bid., 97–98.

19. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 12.

20. Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 97–98.

21. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 12.

22. Ibid., 12.

23. Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 95–96.

24. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 13.

25. Ibid., 12.

26. Ibid., 12.

27. bid., 11–12.

28. Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 96–97.

29. Lewis Wickes Hine, “Noon Hour, Sanford Mfg. Co., Sanford, Me. Some Young Boys and Girls Employed Here,” 1909, Hine no. 706, National Child Labor Committee Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. LLOC's Public Domain Archive

30. bid.

31. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 2.

32. bid., 12–13.

33. Nelson v. Sanford Mills, 89 Me. 219, 36 A. 79 (1896); see also Michaud v. Taylor, 139 Me. 127, 129 (1943), discussing the rule established in Nelson. MMaine Legislative Document Center

34. McDougal's Case, 127 Me. 491, 491–92, 144 A. 569 (1929). OOpenJurist

35. Ibid., 492–93. OOpenJurist

36. Robitaille's Case, 140 Me. 121, 121–27, 34 A.2d 473 (1943). HHall Approved — Free American Case Law+1

37. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 1–4.

38. Ibid., 3–4.

39. Ibid., 3–5.

40. Ibid., 3, 5–6.

41. Ibid., 12.

42. Ibid., 13.

43. Ibid., 12–13.

44. Ibid., 13.

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid., 13.

47. Ibid.

48. Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Goodall-Sanford textile samples, 1951, National Museum of American History collections.

49. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 13.

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid., 13; United Textile Workers of America, AFL Local 1802 v. Goodall-Sanford, Inc., 131 F. Supp. 767, 769–70 (D. Me. 1955).

52. United Textile Workers of America, AFL Local 1802 v. Goodall-Sanford, Inc., 131 F. Supp. 767, 768–70 (D. Me. 1955). JJustia Law

53. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 13.

54. Ibid., 3–6.

55. Ibid., 7.

56. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Sanford Mill Site, Sanford, Maine, Brownfields Success in New England, 2011; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Brownfields 2009 Assessment and Cleanup Grant Fact Sheet: Sanford, Maine, May 2009. UUS EPA+1

57. United Textile Workers of America, AFL Local 1802 v. Goodall-Sanford, Inc., 131 F. Supp. 767, 768–69 (D. Me. 1955). JJustia Law

58. Ibid., 770–72. JJustia Law

59. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 13.

60. Ibid., 2–7, 13.

61. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Sanford Mill Site, Sanford, Maine, 2011. UUS EPA

62. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 1–3.

63. Ibid., 8–9.

64. Ibid., 3–7.

65. Ibid., 10–13; Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 95–98.

66. Hine, “Noon Hour”; McDougal's Case, 127 Me. 491–93; Robitaille's Case, 140 Me. 121–27. LLOC's Public Domain Archive+2

67. Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Report, 96–98; Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 12–13. (Maine Legislative Document Center)

68. United Textile Workers of America, AFL Local 1802 v. Goodall-Sanford, Inc., 131 F. Supp. 767, 768–70; Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 13. JJustia Law

69. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Sanford Mills Historic District, 1–9.

Bibliography

Hine, Lewis Wickes. “Noon Hour, Sanford Mfg. Co., Sanford, Me. Some Young Boys and Girls Employed Here.” 1909. Hine no. 706. National Child Labor Committee Collection. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Maine Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics. Report of the Commissioner of Industrial and Labor Statistics of the State of Maine, 1899–1900. Augusta: Kennebec Journal Print, 1900.

Maine Historic Preservation Commission. Sanford Mills Historic District, Sanford, York County, Maine. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. 2009.

McDougal's Case. 127 Me. 491. 1929.

Michaud v. Taylor. 139 Me. 127. 1943.

Nelson v. Sanford Mills. 89 Me. 219, 36 A. 79. 1896.

Robitaille's Case. 140 Me. 121, 34 A.2d 473. 1943.

Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Goodall-Sanford, Inc. Textile Samples. 1951. National Museum of American History Collections. Washington, D.C.

United States Census Bureau. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900: Manufactures. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1902.

United Textile Workers of America, AFL Local 1802 v. Goodall-Sanford, Inc. 131 F. Supp. 767. U.S. District Court for the District of Maine, 1955.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. Brownfields 2009 Assessment and Cleanup Grant Fact Sheet: Sanford, Maine. Washington, D.C., May 2009.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. Sanford Mill Site, Sanford, Maine. Brownfields Success in New England. Washington, D.C., 2011.

Searches for Sanford, Maine inventors turn up patents in other industries.

1. For example, Joseph F. Benoit of Sanford patented a loom mechanism in 1922, based on an application filed in 1920. GGoogle Patents

2. Robert Reid of Sanford patented an automobile robe-securing device in 1920. GGoogle Patents

Goodall Worsted Company Inventors

June 25, 1878

US 205,377 — Improvement in Machines for Drying Cloth 

Thomas Goodall

Sanford resident; corporate assignee not established

Feb. 1, 1916*

US 1,171,415 — Mohair Fabric 

William S. Nutter

Goodall Worsted Co.

May 17, 1938

US 2,117,954 — Tufted Fabric and Method of Making the Same 

Kendall T. Greenwood

Goodall Worsted Co.

Aug. 15, 1939

US 2,169,491 — Coat Construction 

Jerome Giuseffi

Goodall Worsted Co.

June 3, 1941

US 2,244,363 — Method of Making Yarn 

Clifford Holdsworth

Goodall Worsted Co.

Dec. 5, 1944

US 2,364,066 — Coat 

Jerome Giuseffi

Goodall Worsted Co.

Mar. 5, 1946

US 2,396,095 — Coat Construction 

Jerome Giuseffi

Goodall Worsted Co.

Goodall-Sanford, Inc.

May 6, 1947

US 2,417,320 — Woven Textile Fabric 

William S. Nutter

Sept. 20, 1949

US 2,482,581 — Composite Pile and Nap Face Fabric 

Edmund K. Flynn

May 30, 1950

US 2,509,957 — Machine for Liquid Cleaning of Upholstered Articles, Fabrics, Rugs, Carpets, etc. 

James E Briggs

Dec. 16, 1952

US 2,621,393 — Lint Cleaner 

Thomas Riding

Sanford Mills — patent list

June 3, 1902

US 701,578 — Machine for Cutting Loops of Pile Fabric 

John D. Knowlton

Sept. 9, 1930*

US 1,773,324 — Double-Shuttle Loom for Weaving Pile Fabrics 

Ralph W. Knowlton; Harold C. Bennett

Nov. 17, 1931

US 1,831,812 — Method of Manufacturing a Woven Warp Pile Fabric 

Ellis J. Leach

Aug. 29, 1933

US 1,924,523 — Machine for Uniting Strips of Floor Covering 

See patent specification

Aug. 29, 1933

US 1,924,551 — Machine for Uniting Strips of Floor Covering 

See patent specification

Oct. 1, 1935

US 2,015,810 — Warp Pile Fabric and Method of Making Same 

George A. Morgan

Inventor(s) / Residence

Grant date

Patent and title

Original assignee / connection

Thomas Goodall / Sanford, Maine

June 25, 1878

US 205,377 — Improvement in Machines for Drying Cloth 

Sanford Mills

John D. Knowlton / Sanford, Maine

June 3, 1902

US 701,578 — Machine for Cutting Loops of Pile Fabric 

Sanford Mills

William S. Nutter / Sanford, Maine

Feb. 15, 1916

US 1,171,415 — Mohair Fabric 

Goodall Worsted Co.

Ralph W. Knowlton / Westbrook, Maine

Harold C. Bennett, Maine

Sept. 9, 1930*

US 1,773,324 — Double-Shuttle Loom for Weaving Pile Fabrics 

Sanford Mills

Ellis J. Leach / Sanford, Miane

Nov. 17, 1931

US 1,831,812 — Method of Manufacturing a Woven Warp Pile Fabric 

Sanford Mills

Frank H Higgins / Springvale, Miane

Aug. 29, 1933

US 1,924,523 — Machine for Uniting Strips of Floor Covering 

Sanford Mills

Frank H Higgins / Springvale, Miane

Aug. 29, 1933

US 1,924,551 — Machine for Uniting Strips of Floor Covering 

Sanford Mills

George A. Morgan / Sanford, Maine

Oct. 1, 1935

US 2,015,810 — Warp Pile Fabric and Method of Making Same 

Sanford Mills

Kendall T. Greenwood / Sanford, Maine

May 17, 1938

US 2,117,954 — Tufted Fabric and Method of Making the Same 

Goodall Worsted Co.

Jerome Giuseffi / Cincinnati, Ohio

Aug. 15, 1939

US 2,169,491 — Coat Construction 

Assignor: Goodall Worsted Co.

Clifford Holdsworth / Sanford, Maine

June 3, 1941

US 2,244,363 — Method of Making Yarn 

Goodall Worsted Co.

Jerome Giuseffi / Cincinnati, Ohio

Dec. 5, 1944

US 2,364,066 — Coat 

Assignor: Goodall Worsted Co.

Jerome Giuseffi / Cincinnati, Ohio

Mar. 5, 1946

US 2,396,095 — Coat Construction 

Assignor: Goodall Worsted Co.

William S. Nutter / Sanford, Maine

May 6, 1947

US 2,417,320 — Woven Textile Fabric 

Goodall-Sanford, Inc.

Edmund K. Flynn / Sanford, Maine

Sept. 20, 1949

US 2,482,581 — Composite Pile and Nap Face Fabric 

Goodall-Sanford, Inc.

James E Briggs / Sanford, Maine

May 30, 1950

US 2,509,957 — Machine for Liquid Cleaning of Upholstered Articles, Fabrics, Rugs, Carpets, etc. 

Goodall-Sanford, Inc.

Thomas Riding / Sanford, Maine

Dec. 16, 1952

US 2,621,393 — Lint Cleaner 

Goodall-Sanford, Inc.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Samuel E. Creasey

Sanford, Maine

May 31, 1910

Patent US 959,470  — Conductor's Report-Book

Alberto Irving Gerry

Sanford, Mine

Aug. 6, 1912

Patent US 1,034,996 —.Blend Making Machine For Staple Goods

Joseph F. Benoit

Sanford, Maine

July 4, 1922

US 1,421,897 — Wire motion for looms