Saco-Lowell Shops

[1] At its peak in the 1920s, the company had manufacturing facilities in Lowell and Newton, Massachusetts, and Biddeford, Maine.

[2] During the mid-20th century, Saco-Lowell was one of the "big three" cotton textile machinery builders in New England, along with the Whitin Machine Works and the Draper Corporation.

[3] The Lowell Machine Shop had its origins in the early days of the textile industry in the United States when it was set up as part of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company in 1824, the first cotton textile mill established in Lowell.

Under the direction of Paul Moody, the shop also built machinery for the other mills in Lowell as they were set up.

[7] Otis Pettee established a textile manufacturing company in 1831 at Newton Upper Falls, Massachusetts.

[9] The Kitson plant in Lowell was closed in 1928, when all of the company's operations were consolidated in Biddeford.

[13] In 1992, the former Kitson factory on Dutton Street in Lowell was acquired by the American Textile History Museum, which moved to the site in 1994.