What Was Made
During the B.B. & R. Knight Co. era from 1890-1935, Royal Mill operated as a one stop shop for cotton textile production. Raw, tightly baled cotton would arrive via rail, broken open, and picked by machines. More machinery separated the cotton into fibers, then various wheels combed, straightened, and twisted the fibers before they wound up on bobbins.
Royal Mill produced both cotton thread, for resale, and cotton cloth. B.B. & R. Knight Co. created the “Fruit of the Loom” cotton cloth brand in the mid 1850s. Fruit of the Loom production moved to Royal Mill in 1921 where cotton weavers all manned multiple looms simultaneously. Trimming, bleaching, and dyeing all took place at Royal Mill as well.
After B.B & R. Knight went bankrupt in 1935, Saybrooke Manufacturing Co. spun and wove woolen threads and cloths for about ten years. Royal Mill was then sublet to numerous manufacturing concerns over the next 40 years before being abandoned and taken over by the town of West Warwick, Rhode Island in 1993.
At the hands of Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, what once was a bustling cotton mill now has been turned into some of Rhode Island’s nicest loft style apartments.
