Qualla: American Viscose Plant Historic District

American Viscose Plant Historic District: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. Before nylon, before polyester, before all the synthetic miracles of the late twentieth century, there was viscose. The British called it artificial silk. Americans called it rayon. And in 1916, a British textile giant looking for a place to make the stuff settled on 212 acres along a bend of the Roanoke River, where the water ran fast enough and clean enough to feed an industry. Within a decade, the American Viscose plant in Roanoke had ballooned into what was reportedly the largest rayon producing mill in the world, employing more than 5,000 people and pulling whole rural communities into its orbit.

Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

American Viscose Plant Historic District: The Town That Rayon Built

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. Construction began in 1916 on the first of three enormous processing plants, each with two spinning units. A second went up in 1921, a third in 1925. By 1922, more than a thousand women were on the payroll, many of them recent arrivals from surrounding farms learning to thread th...

Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

American Viscose Plant Historic District: Boom, Bust, Lend-Lease

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nyttend, Public domain. By May 1926, a fifth spinning unit was operational. That same year, the company laid off 1,200 workers and cut the remaining workforce to 32 hours. The roller-coaster years that followed brought a 40-hour week in 1937, a union contract in 1939, and then a strange wartime twist: w...

Image: Nyttend | Public domain

American Viscose Plant Historic District: What Remains

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. Sixteen of the original buildings still stand, most of them little altered from the spinning days. The complex has chimneys that have, fittingly, started failing one by one against the weather. The federal Superfund program took an early look in the late 1980s and concluded the c...

Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

American Viscose Plant Historic District: Riverdale: The Next Chapter

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. In 2023, the Roanoke City Council approved a deal to remake the property as a mixed-use neighborhood called Riverdale. The city offered a $10 million forgivable loan in exchange for at least $50 million in private investment over seventeen years. Almost immediately, the brownfiel...

Image: Jonathunder | Public domain