{"nrhp_refnum":"01001131","name":"Loray Mill Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly bounded by W. Franklin Blvd., S. Vance and S. Trenton Sts., and W. 6th Ave. B","address_restricted":false,"city":"Gastonia","county":"Gaston County","state":"NC","lat":35.25972120200004,"lon":-81.19721685882277,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2001-10-19","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Social History","Industry","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A historic district in Gastonia, Gaston County, North Carolina, centered on the five-story brick Loray Mill and a surrounding village of frame mill houses built mainly between the early 1900s and the 1920s. The mill was designed by Lockwood, Greene and Company and built in 1900-1901, with later expansions in 1921 and 1922.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the district is nationally significant for its textile mill design and technology, including its slow-burning construction and early air conditioning experiments. It also cites the mill's role in the 1929 strike, a major event in early twentieth-century labor history, tied to the 'stretch out' and related labor practices.","narrative":"Loray Mill, a five-story brick textile mill on the western edge of Gastonia, North Carolina, was built in 1900 and 1901 to designs by the Boston engineering firm Lockwood, Greene and Company. Its Romanesque Revival entrance tower and banks of nine-over-nine windows mark it as the centerpiece of a village of frame mill houses laid out on a grid. When completed it was described as the largest textile mill under one roof in the world, with room for about 1,000 workers. Enlarged in 1921 and 1922, it was converted from cloth sheeting to tire fabric for the automobile industry. The district is significant for its industrial architecture and for the 1929 strike centered on the mill, a major episode in labor history that drew international attention. The mill houses, mostly one- and one-and-a-half-story weatherboarded dwellings, survive with many alterations, and the district retains a high level of historic integrity.","period_of_significance":"1900-1935","architect_builder":"Lockwood, Greene and Company, Engineers; Robert and Company, Engineers","architectural_style":"OTHER/functional industrial Romanesque; OTHER/mill house vernacular; Bungalow; Colonial Revival","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"The mill is described as currently vacant but substantially intact.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:41.931291-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/21/7204/47720421/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/01001131.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47720421","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":null},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/gaston-county/loray-mill-historic-district-01001131/"}