Welcome to Factory Island! This island of brick that seperates Saco and Biddeford along the Saco River represents the industrial past of Saco. From the photos above we can see the vast amount of brick that covers Saco Island. The falls runs between Biddeford and Saco and provided a great source of energy for the mills. Recently there has been a major rivalry between Saco and Biddeford over who actually owns Saco Island. They have been re-reading the original land grants to see who actually is entitled to Saco Island. I think this issue is being raised because Saco is making a renewed effort to convert the abandoned mills into useful buildings that can house stores and condos. Part of the mill on the Biddeford side is still functioning today.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
The first mill to be built here was a sawmill built in 1653. In 1811 the Saco Iron Works was also run from Saco Island. Iron was the main focus of Factory Island until 1826 when the largest cotton mill in the United States was built on Saco Island. The cotton mill was seven stories high and employed hundreds of people. In 1830 there was a disastrous fire in the mill and the company had to reorganize into the York Manufacturing Company. By the turn of the century the York Manufacturing Company had eight mills running on Factory Island. The creation of the Biddeford mills made Saco-Biddeford one of the largest mill districts in the country, employing upwards of 9,000 people. The Mills were closed in 1958. Many of the employees were farmer's daughters who had come to the mills to make extra money. As we can see from Mary Bean's experience, many of the women who came here made decent money and could send it back home or use it to buy things, such as magazines and clothes.
Today the mills are full of offices, residences and also the Saco campus of USM. Factory Island represents an industrial past the made Saco and Biddeford into the towns they are today. People came to work in the mills and therefore developed communities around them. Saco would not be the town it is or have the people that it does without the millwork that was provided here. Many of the people in Saco today can still rememeber when the mills were still running and their parents used to work there. It is intersting to think of Saco a noisy mill town when today it is a very quiet spot with and aging population and is really only busy in the summer when the tourists come to town.
