Photo: The Ayer Mill entrance. B. Michael Zuckerman, 1982, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Every story about the Wood Mill has a second name in it: Frederick Ayer.

Ayer was a wealthy businessman and the father-in-law of William Wood. In 1899 he directed the merger of eight textile companies into a new trust, the American Woolen Company. Ayer brought the money; his son-in-law ran the mills.

In 1909, Wood started a new mill directly across Union Street from his giant Wood Mill and named it for Ayer. It was designed by Boston's Charles T. Main. The Ayer Mill had one job in the American Woolen system: to spin and dye yarn for the company. At full capacity it employed about 3,500 mill hands.

It opened on October 3, 1910. That night at 9:00 p.m., the bells of its new clock tower rang for the first time over Lawrence. The tower became the landmark of the Merrimack Valley, and it still is.

The two mills worked side by side, and under Union Street they were connected by a tunnel (more on that in another post).

The Ayer Mill closed in 1955, when American Woolen collapsed. Today it is home to New Balance, and the clock still keeps time for the neighborhood, including everyone at Riverwalk across the street.

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