Niagara Silk Mills

Niagara Silk Mills

Postcard c. 1913. According to a c.1913 news article, "The Niagara Silk Mills began business in an old wooden building on Sweeney street [around 1898] with thirty operatives." By 1913 the concern dominates Sweeney Street, standing where the old Vandervoort "mansion" on Sweeney was, and where Gateway Center is today. The Niagara Silk Mills (Van Raalte Silk Mills after 1917) produces ladies' undergarments, gloves, and similar fineries. They marketed their materials with the iconography of Niagara Falls (reminiscent of the Pan Am Exposition imagery), and with appearances by silent film sirens. By 1937 there are locations in Saratoga Springs, Dunkirk, Paterson and Boonton, N.J. Closed in 1963, the building along Sweeney was converted into the Downtowner Hotel in 1964 and later became the Packet Inn / Woodshed.