The Bailey Wringer did not appear on this site until 1870, when its success necessitated a move to a larger site. Initially, the company was located at Island Place on Market Square (which would later be home to Woonsocket Rubber Company, Falls Yarn, and Barnai Worsted).
The company opened in Woonsocket in 1865 after Simeon Cook persuaded the device's inventor Seldon Bailey to move his small wringer manufacturing company based in Wrentham, MA to the city. Cook insisted Woonsocket would be able to fabricate, distribute, and sell the wringers on a much larger scale.
In 1867, when the company could not obtain satisfactory rubber rollers for its wringing machines, its principals formed the Woonsocket Rubber Company. In time, the Woonsocket Rubber Company would exceed its parent company in both size and profitability.
By 1870, the Bailey Wringer Company was producing 50,000 wringers per year, which precipitated its move to this site on the corner of Pond and Social Street. Within 20 years, the company’s mill filled the entire block from Social Street to Clinton Street. The mill was 3-stories tall, 120 feet by 40 feet and supplied by a hydraulic elevator, the first in the city. The company had 100 employees and could produce 225,000 wringers per year.
<i>Images courtesy of the Woonsocket Historical Society</i>
