Woodberry Factory and Park Mill

Woodberry Factory and Park Mill were built near the site of an 18th-century grist mill. An active industrial area for nearly two centuries, buildings here have been replaced and repurposed to meet changing demands for production of everything from textiles and netting in the 19th century to rubber tires and ice cream cones in the 20th century., In 1843 industrialists Horatio Gambrill and David Carroll built the Woodberry Factory. By the end of the century it had become part of Mount Vernon-Woodberry Cotton Duck Company, a conglomerate that dominated the textile industry in the Jones Falls Valley. The stone duplexes they built nearby for mill workers established the Woodberry community., The site expanded in 1855 with the construction of Park Mill for production of cotton fishing nets. In the 1920s, the company began shuttering its mills in favor of its factories in the South. In 1924, Frank G. Schenuit Rubber Co. purchased the Woodberry Factory. After a 1929 fire, the original factory was replaced with the extant brick structure. When Park Mill sold in 1925, several small companies located here, among them the Commercial Envelope Company and Bes-Cone, maker of ice cream cones., Today, Park Mill is leased to a number of small businesses. The Schenuit factory remains empty after yet another fire, one of the only major industrials buildings in the Jones Falls Valley awaiting redevelopment.