National Register of Historic Places
Globe Knitting Mills
Norristown, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
The record
- Listed
- January 31, 2003
- Type
- Building
- Address
- 660 and 694 E. Main St., Norristown
- County
- Montgomery
- State
- Pennsylvania
- Period of significance
- 1875 to 1974
- Contributing resources
- 2 buildings
- Coordinates
- 40.11129, -75.33123
- Reference number
- 02001745
The story
Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com
Globe Knitting Mills is a knitting mill building at 660 and 694 East Main Street in Norristown, Montgomery County, built in 1898 in the Late Victorian Italianate style and listed in the National Register in 2003.
Why it's listed
It was listed under criterion C, with local significance in industry and architecture, and its period of significance runs from 1898 to 1952, reflecting the mill's construction that year. The nomination credits the design to Hales & Ballinger, an architectural firm formed in 1895 and commissioned in 1898 to design the mill.
Physical character
The three-story main building has an elongated rectangular plan, seven bays across its front and seventeen bays deep, with brick and stucco walls on a brick foundation. Italianate details include a hipped roof, a gabled brick pediment, a moulded metal cornice and a fenestrated, flat-roofed tower, with segmental arched window openings and wooden double-hung sash windows. Additions followed, including a 1902 bleach house, a 1905 enlargement of the main building, a 1940s auto house, and demolition of the boiler house in the 1950s.
Historical context
Globe Knitting Mills was founded in 1885 and moved to this rail-served site in 1898. It closed in 1958, when the main building was used as a warehouse.