Especially with the spread of the silkworm disease called pébrine in France and Italy, and the turmoil in China caused by the Taiping Rebellion, Japanese silk was in high demand.

In 1870, a government-owned model factory, the Maebashi Silk Mill, was constructed with equipment imported from Italy and with a Swiss engineer to assist.

Later the same year, leaders of the Meiji government, including Ōkuma Shigenobu, Itō Hirobumi and Shibusawa Eiichi approached the French embassy and was introduced to Paul Brunat, an engineer who was working as a raw silk inspector in Yokohama to oversee a project to construct a much larger facility.

Brunat in turn hired Edmond Auguste Bastan to create a blueprint for the design of the silk mill, which was completed the end of December 1870.

Another point which Brunat took into account when special-ordering the reeling equipment in Europe was the smaller stature of the Japanese women who operated the machines.

Workers from Tomioka were also sent, or otherwise found employment at other privately owned silk mills which were subsequently built in Japan.

Brunat and other foreign engineers employed at Tomioka left at the end of 1875 when their contracts expired, and thereafter the mill was managed only by Japanese.

Odaka came into conflict with his government overseers and was forced to retire in November 1876 as well, but by this time the mill was showing good profits, and in the following year, direct exports to France by Mitsui & Co. began.

Plans to privatize the mill was delayed when cabinet minister Matsukata Masayoshi visited the Exposition Universelle (1878) in Paris as was told that the quality of silk from Tomioka had deteriorated considerably.

He agreed to rent the Tomioka Silk Mill for a five-year period, but this was strenuously opposed by the Gunma Prefectural government.

Under its fourth director, Okano Asaji, a drop in silk prices worldwide plunged the operation deeply into the red.

Hayami returned as director again in 1885 and turned the situation around by opening new markets in New York and by raising the reputation of Tomioka silk by increasing quality control.

Under management of Mitsui, a second women one-story factory was established, and new, more modern, reeling machines were instructed, All of the raw silk produced at the Tomioka mill was exported to the United States.

The factory manager at the Hara Tomioka Silk Mill committed suicide in 1938 due to disputes with the labor unions, and the development of nylon in the United States as a competitor to silk caused great concerns, as the United States was still the company's major export market.

Katakura was one of the largest textile companies in Japan at the time, and had lost in the initial privatization of the mill to Mitsui & Co. in 1893.

The factory was placed under government control by the National Mobilization Law with Katakura continuing the manage operations; however, its production was shifted to focus on munitions-related materials for aircraft or military use.

The number of workers were drastically reduced due to the need for women to till fields as so many man had been conscripted by the army.

The Important Cultural Property designation collectively covered seven buildings, including one iron water tank and one sewage ditch.