20. The End of the Damon Mill Era

Edward Damon ran the mill successfully through the 1880s. At that time, the mill employed 175 people and had 40 tenements to house workers. However, by the early 1890s, declining sales and changes in the textile industry began to affect business. Damon's conversion of the mill from flannel to dress goods proved to be costly, and the company never fully recovered. Both the mill and Edward Damon's health declined, and his son Ralph took over management responsibilities. 

In 1893, Damon Mill was mortgaged to the Middlesex Institution for Savings, a move that the Damons were loath to make. 

When the bank auctioned the property in 1898, the three-generation tenure of the Damon family, who had developed the mill that spawned a neighborhood, came to an end. But as the twentieth century approached, such an end was inevitable: a small factory in a Boston suburb was no longer a viable place to produce textiles.