In 1889, Woonsocket politician Aram Pothier was appointed by Rhode Island Governor Royal C. Taft as a representative to the Exhibition Universelle de Paris, a world’s fair marking the centennial of the storming of the Bastille. Pothier’s travels in Europe took him to the textile centers of Roubaix and Turcoing, in France, and Verviers, in Belgium, where he met with representatives of textile producers in an effort to spark interest in establishing facilities in Rhode Island, and, in particular, Woonsocket.
Through Pothier's efforts, in February 1899, Auguste Lepoutre et Cie (translation “and Company”) dispatched Charles Loridan, engineer and mill architect, to Woonsocket to find a location for the company’s first foray into manufacturing in the United States. Loridan identified a portion of the former Hamlet Mill property, most of which had recently been sold to the Pycott Manufacturing Company. With the site along the Blackstone River secured and Loridan working on a design for a steam-powered spinning mill, the Lepoutre Company incorporated the Lafayette Worsted Company in Rhode Island in late 1899.