Stephenson Underwear Mills — from the Staley woolen mill

1863 – the mill's end is thin in the record reached

Wool first, then underwear: The line begins with the A. C. Staley Woolen Mill, established on the East Race in 1863 and grown by 1889, the year of Staley's death, into a complex of buildings carried on by his son Marion and other stockholders — among them the four Stephenson brothers, who had started as salesmen for the company. In 1888 Staley began making men's wool underwear and overshirts, sold throughout the northern half of the United States. In 1907 the Stephenson brothers became sole owners and the company took the name Stephenson Underwear Mills, adding a women's underwear line sold nationwide.

The 1916 mill: The firm's Building No. 6, at 322 East Colfax Avenue, went up in 1916 for carding, spinning, sewing, cutting, and knitting, and is the building carried on the National Register of Historic Places, where the mill was listed in 1995. The nomination counts about 300 garment workers at the mill, most of them women — the same female workforce pattern as the Wilson Brothers shirt factory across town, the two of them the city's great employers of women in the garment trades. The Stephenson company's own end is not carried in the sources reached for this section: the mill building is documented, listed, and standing in the record; the firm's closing date is not, and none is printed.

Sources:

1. National Register of Historic Places nomination, Stephenson Underwear Mill (1995) — the A. C. Staley Woolen Mill established on the East Race in 1863; the 1888 turn to men's wool underwear; the Stephenson brothers' sole ownership and the company's renaming in 1907; Building No. 6 of 1916 at 322 East Colfax Avenue; about 300 garment workers, most of them women; and the nomination's count of about 400 manufacturers in South Bend in 1926.