"Ontario Mills, Arrott Steam Power Mills Co." (1893), Hexamer #2720.
Ontario Mills, 1881
West side of Second Street, between Montgomery and Columbia Avenues, Philadelphia PA 19122
© Carmen A. Weber, Irving
Kosmin, and Muriel Kirkpatrick, Workshop of the World (Oliver
Evans Press, 1990).
A Hexamer General
Survey 1
indicates that
the Ontario Mills were built in 1881 and 1882 by the
Arrott Steam Power Mills Company. William Arrott's Mills
were erected as a financial investment with special
attention paid to fire-proofing in an effort to reduce
the number of mill fires. 2
Arrott's five
fire-proof mills were some of the very few owned by a
corporation; most mills in Philadelphia were owned by
family firms and partnerships. 3
The mill buildings stood back to back on Philip and
Second Streets; and have changed little in appearance
since they were built. Both wings of the mill were of
brick, with five storys, and a row of windows for the
basement. The wing of the mill on Second Street had stair
towers at each end with metal platforms on every floor,
surprisingly, these were not fire escapes. The wing
extended 172 feet along Second Street, with 16 bays. In
1884 the mills were rented to five tenants, who produced
both cotton and woolen yarn and goods.
4
On the 1888 and
1885 Baist's atlases these buildings were identified as
the Ontario Woolen Mills. However, the 1893 survey listed
as a tenant the Ontario Spinning Mills, producing cotton
yarn, as well as four other tenants, including the
owners, the Arrott Steam Power Mills, Co. In 1916 the
Ontario Spinning Company was listed at an address on the
correct block of Philip Street, with 50 employees the
same number as in 1893. 5
An atlas of 1922
placed the Ontario Mills on Second Street and the Arrott
Steam Power Mills on Philip Street. Neither were listed
in the 1943 textile industry survey. At this time the
Heidelberger Confectioner Co. occupied the premises; a
later industrial use is indicated by a sign painted above
the first floor proclaiming "Master Chef Foods,
Inc.—Institutional Grocers."
1 Hexamer General Survey #1844 (1884),
"Ontario Mills, Arrott Steam Power Mills
Co."
2 Scranton,
Proprietary
Capitalism, p. 343.
3 Scranton,
Proprietary
Capitalism, Chapter 3.
4 Hexamer General Survey #1844 (1884),
"Ontario Mills, Arrott Steam Power Mills
Co."
5 Department of Labor
and Industry, Pennsylvania, 1916, p. 1307; and
Hexamer General Survey #2720 (1893),
"Ontario Mills, Arrott Steam Power Mills
Co."
Update May
2007 (by
Torben Jenk):
Demolished.