Woonsocket Rubber Company (Alice Mill)
Banigan’s rubber empire
The Woonsocket Rubber Company was founded by Irish-Catholic immigrant Joseph Banigan. Banigan apprenticed at the Providence Rubber Company and established his own company in Woonsocket in 1867. The company grew from producing rubber rolls for washing machines to manufacturing boots and shoes, becoming the largest rubber importer in the U.S.
The company’s largest factory was the Alice Mill on Fairmount Street. Built in 1889, at the time of its construction it was the largest rubber mill in the world and employed 1,500 people. In 1892 it was sold to the newly formed US Rubber Company. Although closed in 1932 due to the Great Depression, the Alice Mill was reopened in 1941 to manufacture war materials for the U.S. government. Its products included life rafts, barrage balloons, wading suits and life jackets used throughout the war. They also secretly manufactured inflatable tanks, trucks, artillery pieces, and jeeps, used for deception by the Ghost Army. The equipment made in Woonsocket was used by the Ghost Army to create fake military installations and movements, tricking the German army into redeploying its forces away from where the real Allied forces were planning to advance. The manufacturing was kept highly secret, with workers at the mill unaware of the equipment’s real function. They were told the items were for target practice.
After the war the mill continued production, manufacturing products including Keds® sneakers, and eventually closed in the 1960’s, after which the site was repurposed for plastics manufacturing. The historic landmark suffered a major fire in 2011, destroying the former rubber plant.
