{"nrhp_refnum":"10000407","name":"Bellemonte Silk Mill","other_names":["Sherman Underwear Mills","Welwood Silk Mill"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"230 Welwood Ave","address_restricted":false,"city":"Hawley","county":"Wayne County","state":"PA","lat":41.47175279900006,"lon":-75.17207078199993,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2010-06-28","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A three-story coursed rubble bluestone silk mill with a castellated parapet, built on a sloped site on the west bank of the Wallenpaupack Creek at 230 Welwood Avenue in Hawley, Wayne County, Pennsylvania. A separate stone Cocoon Building stands across the street.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the mill is a good example of late nineteenth-century industrial mill architecture in northeastern Pennsylvania, distinguished by its High Victorian Gothic castellated roof parapet and stone construction. It is considered unusual for a mill in the region to show this Gothic influence. The Cocoon Building is described as a functionally related building that adds to the resource's significance.","narrative":"Built on a terrace above the falls of the Wallenpaupack Creek in Hawley, the Bellemonte Silk Mill was constructed in 1880-1881 by the Paterson, New Jersey, silk firm Dexter Lambert. The long, narrow building of coursed local bluestone measures 360 feet by 44 feet and rises three stories, with five levels exposed on its north end because of the embankment. A front pavilion on the west elevation carries the dates 1880 and 1894 and a castellated parapet runs along the roofline. Water from a forty-five-inch turbine under a sixty-one-foot head powered the machinery, and the mill employed about 300 women and girls in the 1880s and 1890s. A fire in August 1894 destroyed much of the building, and it was rebuilt in nearly identical form. The surviving stone Cocoon Building across Welwood Avenue shows the mill's role in storing imported silk cocoons.","period_of_significance":"1880-c.1900","architect_builder":"Dexter Lambert firm (builder)","architectural_style":"High Victorian Gothic","criteria":["C"],"status_note":null,"vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:10:27.469873-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/10000407.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/10000407/3122998b21-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/10000407/3122998b21-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 2.0","author":"Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bellemonte_Silk_Mill_Nov_09.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bellemonte_Silk_Mill_Nov_09.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71995851","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellemonte_Silk_Mill","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4883793"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/wayne-county/bellemonte-silk-mill-10000407/"}