Manchester Millyard: textiles to tech (1935-present)
The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company was the world's largest textile producer, employing 17,000 people in mills along the Merrimack River. It closed in 1935, leaving millions of square feet of empty factory space in the middle of Manchester.
The mills sat largely vacant for decades as the region's textile economy collapsed.
Starting in the 1980s, the Millyard became office and tech space. Dean Kamen's DEKA moved in, and later United Therapeutics established its organ-manufacturing lab there.
This is the same regional pattern: a massive legacy industrial facility repurposed for high-tech manufacturing. The Merrimack purchase is the next chapter in that transformation.
