A German immigrant, Joseph Ott, introduced silk weaving to Pawtucket in 1888. By 1900 he began building this plant, which, by World War I, boasted the largest weaving shed in the world. Prolonged labor troubles from the 1930s onward eventually closed the plant in 1949, as an aspect of the widening collapse of Rhode Island textile operations. Cotton manufacturing moved to the South first, followed by manufacturers of the other basic fibers. As is frequently and disappointingly the case, most windows have been blinded. The brick walls are pier and spandrel, and, as in the Potter and Johnstone Machine Company ( PA32) are corbeled over the topmost windows between the piers. Here, a cornice zone above contains more corbeling with a rhythmic accent over each of the piers. The tower, at a major intersection, displays yet another battlemented treatment in brick to frame handsome clock faces in four directions. The extent of the side wall along Sabin Street reveals the plant's considerable size, where a few windows from different phases of the plant's enlargement have been left exposed.