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LONACONING — A couple of thousand dollars’ worth of plastic lies atop the roof of the Lonaconing Silk Mill, attempting to keep out the winter, as a Montgomery County woman who has fallen in love with the historic place works to preserve the de facto museum.
Kathleen Erkert of Brookeville, a member of the Georges Creek Promotion Council, detailed on Friday a list of contacts she has made in an effort to preserve the historic structure and its contents. On the surface, Erkert’s endeavors appear to be the most concentrated yet.
“I am so grateful that the promotion council and the Lonaconing Town Council have eloquently supported this effort,” Erkert said by phone, a day before she was to travel to Allegany County to give yet another presentation about the mill, that one to the Coalition of Western Allegany County Legacies.
The plant has been closed since the summer of 1957, when employees were locked out over a labor dispute.
The manufacturing equipment as well as workers’ personal items remain where they were that day. Calendars from 1957 remain on the walls.
Part-owner Herb Crawford, who has been trying for years to sell the mill to an entity that would preserve it, said Friday that the plastic recently put atop the structure will help some.
“We got a $1,000 grant from Preservation Maryland and I put in another $1,000 to buy the plastic,” he said.
Crawford said he is encouraged by Erkert’s interest and effort to save the mill.
“Thirty-eight years ago I was working for a man, originally from Lonaconing, who was having a 50th wedding anniversary. I knew he loved the mill so I learned about it,” Erkert said.
Eventually Erkert visited the structure.
“And when I found out that it made the silk that my mother used to construct parachutes in a Reading (Pa.) factory during the war, I was hooked,” she said.
“All the people I have met in the Georges Creek are proud, hard-working people. The mill needs to be preserved so younger people can realize how hard their ancestors worked. You can’t know where you are going until you know where you came from.”
Erkert said she hopes the mill can follow the lead of the American Can Co. in Baltimore, where a first floor was used as a museum for that business and the upper floors generated income.
She plans to approach Frostburg State University about such a collaboration and said County Commissioner Mike McKay has agreed to assist her in that effort.
“We also have made contact with the grandson of the original mill owner. He has a prosperous company of his own and has asked to be kept informed of the progress. There may be some help there as well,” Erkert said, adding that she preferred not to name the grandson or his company at this time.
She said assessments of the building’s structural integrity have been glowing, in spite of the lengthy abandonment.
J. Robert Dick, chief of the Allegany County Bureau of Police, said Friday that a theft of brass and other items at the silk mill this past summer has not yet been solved.
“That investigation is active,” Dick said. “Brass is a hot item right now. We have had several brass thefts in the county.”
Contact Michael A. Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.
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