A Little Bit of History
By Clara E. Scott
St. Charles Woolen Mills, located at 920 South Main Street, will be the topic of this “little bit of history”.
Louis Blanchette first identified this site as an ideal site for a gristmill in 1769 and was the first woolen mill to be erected in St. Charles. Pierre Choteau, who was granted one of the first land grants here, later made improvements on the old Blanchette grist mill, but a flood of 1788 carried most of the structure (including Choteau’s dual water wheel) away. The considerable volume of water that rushed through the Blanchette Creek into the Missouri River drove the wheel for the mill. The mill specialized in making woolen blankets and mittens.
Choteau was the younger brother of one co-founder of St. Louis and a stepson to the other. He made the earliest surviving survey of St. Charles in 1789. President Thomas Jefferson later appointed him “Indian Agent for Upper Louisiana” in 1804.
It has been ascertained through remodeling efforts that there have been five separate additions to this building over the years. (Note the unusual number of windows for a “mill”). Frankin S. Newbill enlarged the mill and increased production capacity tenfold, but went bust in 1840. In 1848, this was a site of a German School for children affiliated with Emmanuel Lutheran Church.
On July 2, 1851, future Mayor William P. Gibbs and Charles H. Broadwater converted the mill site into the town’s first woolen mill. Blanchette Creek (later called Factory Branch) powered the mill wheel. For many years, elderly women supplemented their income by coming here to piecemeal sewing work back when the heels of stockings had to be finished by hand.
During the War Between the States, the mill building was temporarily occupied by Yankee troops and used to imprison local citizens who refused to take the Oath of Loyalty to the Union. Gibbs reopened the mill after the war with Edward C. Cunningham but soon sold out to Robert A. Walton. Gibbs was back with new partners from 1872-1882, but finally gave up the ghost after this third attempt. It was later used briefly as a corncob pipe factory.
In 1922, Sarah Frasier, who established the first Christian Scientist Church in St. Charles County, operated a tomato canning business here.
In 1966, the building was badly damaged by fire, but it has been restored to its earlier appearances is now part of the South Main Commercial District.
(My Notes: I have lived here in St. Charles since 1949 and seem to remember that this site once was a brewery, then Broadwaters Restaurant, now the notable TRAILHEAD BREWERY. If anyone can help me out with more history on this site, please contact me at the First Capitol News and I will add additional information to this “little bit of history”.
(Information for this article obtained from McElhiney’s Guidebook to Historic St. Charles, Missouri, Richard G. Sperandio. Editor, with his permission).
