Thompson Textile Mill

In the late 1800’s, Industrialist James Thompson built a textile mill along the Hoosic River in Valley Falls, New York. Nearly all village residents worked in the mill and school kids ran home when the mill's lunch whistle sounded. The mill provided fabrics to hat makers in the northeast. The company soon added finished products including twine and netting. In the 1950s, the mill catered to home sewing enthusiasts.

The  Thompson firm opened a new mill in Delaware in the 1970s and another factory in Mexico in the 1990s. Cotton grown in the South was shipped to Mills here for processing into fabrics.

Valley Falls is a small town north of Albany and was considered the ideal location for Thompson to build his mill. The first mill was completely “vertical”, from spinning of yarns to weaving and finishing. Thompson concentrated on 3 main products: Buckram, Netting and Twine. The #1 fabric at the time was Buckram, as the fashion and social mores of that era dictated that everyone, men and women, wore a hat.

After its height of operation in the 1970s it entered a decade of decline. The mill had been vacant for at least 10 years when it went up in flames in the early morning hours on April 22, 2009.