You are here

Rhode Island » Northeast » North Smithfield » Slatersville » Mill Dams

Mill Dams

-A A +A
1849 and later. Railroad St.

The Western Mill site on the west side of Railroad Street provides the best view of a sequence of dams on the Branch River that successively hold back the water for the raceway. Behind a relatively small dam is the principal barrier, Middle Dam (1849), with yet another built behind it late in the nineteenth century. Middle Dam is an especially splendid masonry structure of very large blocks, in all 300 feet long with a rollway 160 feet wide for a twenty-foot fall of water.

Writing Credits

Author: 
William H. Jordy et al.
×

Data

What's Nearby

Commercial Blocks
Dr. Elisha Bartlett House
Slatersville Mill
Duplex Mill Housing
Mill Overseers' Housing

Citation

William H. Jordy et al., "Mill Dams", [North Smithfield, Rhode Island], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/RI-01-NS30.

Print Source

Buildings of Rhode Island, William H. Jordy, with Ronald J. Onorato and William McKenzie Woodward. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, 248-248.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,