BELLEVUE MILL -ENGINE ROOM

01.23.2016

Attached to the south facade of the two-story block were boiler and engine rooms, separated from the main mill and from each other by fire walls. To the east of these was the beaming room. The facade of this room was preserved behind a 1923 addition, but must have been destroyed upon removal of that addition: the existing south wall sits several feet in front of the engine room facade. The original factory had a power train of belt-driven machinery, run by steam power; at the rear of the engine room, a belt-way penetrated the main area of the mill.

1943 Sanborn

The facades of the boiler room and engine room are the most "designed" of the complex, and must have been intended as the entry to the mill. The engine room has a large segmental arch opening, the top of which is still visible behind a later wall. Above, to each side, is a smaller window set beneath a segmental arch; in 1923 the arches were filled in with masonry and the windows replaced with steel sash. The arch motif is repeated in the facade of the neighboring boiler room, which resembles a portico; this facade is intact, although hard to view because of the proximity of the neighboring warehouse which was later built to the south.

08.10.2015 (Belk Architecture)