Just off state Route 36 in Maryland is the Lonaconing Silk Mill, the last silk mill in the United States. It was in operation from 1907 to 1957 providing materials for two major wars and employing hundreds of people, as many as 300 at a time. In the 1950s its aging equipment made it no longer viable to compete with the larger plants and it was closed. The mill was not torn down or disassembled, but instead the doors were closed and locked, and they remain that way to this day. The factory has become a time capsule with everything frozen in 1957. In 2007 the factory was placed on the Maryland list of endangered sites. You can learn more about this and other endangered sites in Maryland at http://www.preservemd.org/
-Professor Walter
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