Piedmont Buggy Factory, Historic industrial building in Monroe, United States.
Piedmont Buggy Factory is a three-story rectangular brick building in Monroe, North Carolina, with a shallow pitched gable roof and brickwork in six distinct shades of red. The property also holds a contributing one-story brick boiler house from the late 1910s and a steel water tower dating to about 1910.
The factory was built in 1910 to manufacture horse-drawn carriages before shifting to textile production as Bearskin Cotton Mills. Operations ceased in 1956, after which the structure remained largely unused for decades.
The building's name changed with its use: opened in 1910 as the Piedmont Buggy Factory, it became Bearskin Cotton Mills when textile production took over in the late 1910s, and is also known as Monroe Cotton Mills. The brick walls, laid in six shades of red, are the most visible trace of that industrial past.
The building stands at Monroe in Union County, North Carolina, and is a private property with no visitor facilities; the sources record no public tours or interior access. The contributing one-story brick boiler house from the late 1910s and the steel water tower of about 1910 stand on the same grounds, so the complex is best seen from the street.
The property also holds a contributing one-story brick boiler house from the late 1910s and a steel water tower dating to about 1910, both listed alongside the main factory in 2004. The brickwork itself comes in six distinct shades of red.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 92,622 contributors worldwide.