A. C. Staley and the Stephenson brothers — wool first, then underwear

the Staley mill, 1863 · the Stephenson name from 1907

The founding: 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 had begun 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 — a founder line that ran, as the city's garment trade so often did, from the sales route to the owner's office.

The run, and its named gaps: 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 Stephenson brothers' individual names, and the company's own closing date, are not carried in the sources reached for this history: the mill building is documented, listed, and standing in the record; the men and the end are not, and neither is supplied.

Sources:

1. Businesses — "Stephenson Underwear Mills — from the Staley woolen mill" (the 1863 establishment, Staley's death in 1889 and the succession by Marion Staley and the stockholders, the four Stephenson brothers from salesmen to sole owners in 1907, Building No. 6 of 1916 and the 1995 National Register listing, the 300 garment workers; the closing date expressly not carried).