On-line Walking Tour / 05-222-230 Mill Street

On-line Walking Tour/ 222-230 Mill Street

This is the Samuel R Parry Machine Co. building. Built in 1851 and modified in the 1870s, this building best illustrates industrial buildings of the 19th century. This four-story brick vernacular industrial building features seven bays and projecting cornice with corbelled frieze and has loading doors with hoist and pulley on each floor. Mechanics were employed here in the manufacture of patented machinery for making barrels.

Mill Street illustrates the intensity of industrial activity in the Browns Race area during the latter half of the 19th century. Along this short street are buildings that once housed a tool factory, saw factories, machine works, a tobacco factory, a paper box factory and much more. All of the older buildings on Mill Street (except 208 Mill Street, built in 1826) were built or significantly modified during the 1870s and 1880s. Built of brick or stone, they feature many of the architectural fashions of their era. Several have mansard roofs; many still have their original multipaned windows, as well as elaborate brick frieze bands and cornices.