National Register Listing

Barker Mill

143 Mill St., Auburn, ME

Architecturally, the Barker Mill is one of the most well proportioned of the relatively few mansard-roofed mills in Maine. Although by their very nature, late 19th-century textile mills tended to be starkly simple and rather drab in appearance, this particular structure, even with the loss of the top floor of the tower, possesses an unusual stylistic dignity and extensive decorative detail.
The Barker Mill was designed by Charles F. Douglas whose brief but meteoric career(see C. F. Douglas House - nomination pending) included such outstanding works as the impressive Continental Mill in Lewiston, the Somerset County Courthouse in Skowhegan and the Glover House in Rockland.

This mill was, for a long time, Auburn's one major venture in the textile industry. It was the enterprise that gave the New Auburn section its favorable start as a business center.

The undertaking began in 1870, with the acquisition of a large area of land along the Little Androscoggin River for a considerable distance upstream from its confluence with the Big Androscoggin. The purpose of the group of businessmen, who called themselves the Little Androscoggin Water Power Company, was to develop water power for a textile mill. This purchase of land with the right to build a power dam led not only to the dam and a five-story mill but to the sale of home building lots to the people who flocked into the area.
The dam was completed in 1872; the mill in 1873; and "Barker Mill", so named in honor of c. I. Barker, a prominent textile executive who became its first directing agent, went into operation in 1874. It engaged in the manufacture of cotton shirtings and sheetings and was active for many years. In 1888, it employed 275 persons and produced four million yards of goods.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1979.