mill town
Industrial worker community
A mill town is a community whose economy centers on a single factory or industrial facility—originally textile mills, but also steel mills, paper mills, or lumber mills.
The term often carries connotations of economic vulnerability: When the mill closed, the whole town suffered.
Mill towns evoke images of working-class life, company housing, and the boom-and-bust cycles of American manufacturing.
- company storeEmployer-operated retail outlet
- company housingEmployer-provided living space
- smokestackIndustrial exhaust column
- smoke stacksTall industrial exhaust pipes
- factoryIndustrial production facility
factory whistle · punch clock · paternalism · labor union · pollution · child labor · rural exodus · Industrial Revolution · cotton gin · waterwheel · loom · textile mills · textile industry · tenement housing · hard times · working-class culture · machinery · urbanization
- historic placesancient city, historic district, historic quarter, Constantinople, walled city
- industrial sitesfactory floor, oil refinery, factories, petrochemical plants, plants
- settlementsvillage, cities, hamlet, city, towns
- small townshamlet, village, settlement, homestead, village square
- small communitieshamlet, village, outpost, settlement, commune
- villageshamlet, village green, alpine village, coastal village, farming village
mill townfarming community
Settlement centered on cultivation
agricultural town · farm town · fishing village · ranch town · resort town
mill townmetropolis
Large important city
global city · major city · financial center · capital city · New York City
mill townresort community
Town designed for holidaymakers
bedroom community · retirement community · Palm Beach · Greenwich · commuter town