{"nrhp_refnum":"85000176","name":"Grimshaw Silk Mill","other_names":["Freeman Shoes"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1200 N. 1100 St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Reading","county":"Berks County","state":"PA","lat":40.35282354200007,"lon":-75.91567164899999,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1985-01-31","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A brick silk mill in Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania, located on 11th Street with a principal facade facing that street and a rear alley. The present building was erected in 1889 after the earlier 1887 mill was destroyed.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the mill marks the extension of the Paterson, New Jersey silk trade into smaller American cities, financed by local citizens. Its 1889 reconstruction followed a windstorm disaster that killed seventeen women workers, and its articulated brickwork and cornices are described as an unusually sophisticated example of late nineteenth-century mill architecture.","narrative":"A large brick mill on 11th Street in Reading, Pennsylvania, the Grimshaw Silk Mill is roughly 250 feet long and 50 feet wide, with a rubble stone basement and pilasters rising to a pressed metal cornice. The mill was financed by Reading citizens and run with machinery and management supplied by the Grimshaw Brothers of Paterson, New Jersey, and it employed several hundred young women in spinning and weaving. A windstorm destroyed the first building in January 1889, killing seventeen workers and injuring about one hundred, and the replacement was built by Reading contractor L.H. Focht. The nomination regards the rebuilt mill as one of the most elaborately styled mill buildings in the region. Its survival in a residential neighborhood illustrates how work and housing were closely linked in nineteenth-century American cities.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899","architect_builder":"L.H. Focht (builder/contractor)","architectural_style":null,"criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"The document states the building survives in excellent condition.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:33.100451-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/85000176.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/85000176/3d5da9b1ed-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/85000176/3d5da9b1ed-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silkmill.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silkmill.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71997946","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimshaw_Silk_Mill","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5609341"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/berks-county/grimshaw-silk-mill-85000176/"}