Lackawanna Mills and Scranton Button Historic District

The unique saw-tooth roof pattern on this 1909 Scranton Button Co. building enabled an increase of natural light and ventilation on the factory floor. Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office/Photo by Robert Powers

At the crossing of Cedar Avenue over Stafford Meadow Brook in southern Scranton, Lackawanna County, lies a roughly 5-acre city block of industrial buildings that contains a history just as dense and layered as the location itself. In 1887 Scranton industrialist William Connell (1827-1909) founded two separate businesses at the site: Lackawanna Mills, a major manufacturer of wool and cotton textiles, including underwear; and the Scranton Button Co., which became a leader in the development of shellac compounds and button-making machinery. Both companies would become major industrial forces, not only in the city but throughout the state and nation as well.

William Connell, founder of Lackawanna Mills and Scranton Button Co. From Prominent and Progressive Pennsylvanians of the Nineteenth Century, Record Publishing, 1898

Connell had previously made a name and fortune for himself working in the coal mining industry, eventually buying the Susquehanna & Wyoming Valley Railroad & Coal Co. mines in 1870. He reorganized the business as William Connell & Co., and it grew to become the largest coal operator in the entire region. Seventeen years later, to diversify his portfolio, Connell began both Lackawanna Mills and Scranton Button Co.

By the end of the 19th century, Lackawanna Mills had expanded and added several substantial four-story industrial buildings. The physical growth was sparked by sales of their popular union suits (one-piece long underwear) and other undergarment items. The company also produced its own paper boxes. Growth allowed for a larger workforce that eventually reached 806 workers by 1916: 560 women and 246 men.

During World War I, Lackawanna Mills thrived on a series of wartime contracts from both the United States and the United Kingdom. By 1917 the company’s annual output was an estimated $2.5 million. After the war, contracts dried up and sales of the traditionally reliable heavy-weight wool undergarments began to decline as trends and styles changed. Lackawanna Mills eventually developed new lines of lightweight underwear, polo shirts, bathing suits and other athletic clothing, but this only delayed the company’s inevitable collapse. With diminishing sales and a shrinking workforce, Lackawanna Mills began to rent out space in its massive buildings to other local companies. Lasting until the early 1960s, Lackawanna Mills had been reduced solely to manufacturing paper boxes, with a workforce of 50.

The Scranton Button Co. lettering is still visible at the top of the company’s machine shop, built in 1913. Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office/Photo by Robert Powers

Connell’s other company, Scranton Button, steadily produced modest ivory buttons for most of the company’s early years. By the late 19th century, however, genuine ivory was becoming scarce. Enter Philip L. Sylvester, whom Connell appointed as the new superintendent of Scranton Button in 1891. Sylvester had been a long-time innovator of button-making machinery and button materials and had filed many patents in the 1880s. He and a colleague are credited with being the first to develop a viable shellac recipe for buttons that allowed for rapid and easy production. The company soon became an industry leader and continued to develop new manufacturing processes and machinery. Scranton Button’s footprint at the Scranton site also grew as several new and larger buildings were constructed to house a larger workforce, new and heavier machinery, and an increasing product output. By 1914 Scranton Button was producing 3 million buttons a day, and several sources reported that it was the largest button factory in the world.

In 1917, with its knowledge of extruded shellac compounds, Scranton Button began pressing phonograph records, which were rising in popularity. After constructing yet another building at the site, the company was able to press approximately 25,000 records daily. By the 1930s it had become one of the largest record manufacturers in the country, employing 1,200 workers and pressing 46,000 records a day.

Built in 1895 for Lackawanna Mills’ expanding knitting operation, this building was later home to Capitol Records’ pressing operation. Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office/Photo by Robert Powers

Eventually, Scranton Button’s growth and success in record manufacturing drew the attention of Los Angeles-based Capitol Records. Looking to eliminate the need to outsource the production of its records, Capitol purchased Scranton Button in 1946 and operated it as the largest of three record manufacturing plants in the country. Over the following decades, the Scranton plant pressed numerous vinyl LPs and singles of artists such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, the Beach Boys, the Beatles, Pink Floyd and the Steve Miller Band. Eventually, Capitol shifted much of its record production to a plant in Virginia and then sold the Scranton plant in 1973.

In 2017 the Lackawanna Mills and Scranton Button Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the entire district stands as a monument to Scranton’s unique and innovative industrial past.

Recent listings in the National Register of Historic Places include Keim Homestead, Pike Township, Berks County; Jacob and Juliana Middlekauff House, Franklin Township, Adams County; Mill-Rae (Rachel Foster Avery House), Philadelphia; Reuben and Elizabeth Strassburger Farmstead, Hilltown Township, Bucks County; and W.A. Young & Sons Foundry and Machine Shop, Rices Landing, Greene County.

David Maher is a historic preservation specialist who coordinates the National Register Program for the central part of the state at PHMC’s State Historic Preservation Office.