Erben Harding Textile, 1885
5200 Unruh Street, Philadelphia PA 19135
(south side of Unruh Street at the Delaware River)
© Harry C. Silcox, Ed.D.,
Workshop of the World (Oliver Evans Press,
1990).
The lauding of Tacony as the
ideal manufacturing town by the report of Pennsylvania's
Internal Affairs Secretary brought Erben Search Company
Worsted Mill into the community in 1885. Land was
purchased on the river south of the Disston works and a
building constructed that resembled the textile buildings
of the 1860s. The building itself, with its tower and
chimney remain the best example of such manufacturing
buildings still standing in the area. In 1904, the
Harding Textile Company at 25th and Spring Garden Streets
decided to merge their operation with that of Erben in
Tacony. Thereafter the textile plant was known as Erben
Harding.
When the new plant was opened there was, for the first
time, an industry in Tacony that employed large numbers
of female workers. Most were Polish women from Bridesburg
or Irish or Italian women from Tacony. The company closed
during the depression of the 1930s. The Erben Harding
complex remains deserted but in good condition.
1
The Erben Harding building remains in use today as a
warehouse; however, the office area and original textile
mill are not being used and appear abandoned.
1 "Tacony,"
Erben Harding
Company, (1906); see also, "The
Keystone Saw, Tool, Steel, and File Works,"
Annual Report of
the Secretary of Internal Affairs of the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania—Part III—Industrial Statistics,
Vol. XV, (Harrisburg, 1887), p. E-35.
Update May
2007 (by
Torben Jenk):
Rising atop a complex of perhaps four two-story brick
buildings are a huge square tapering chimney and a
charming brick tower with arched windows, iron cresting
and a weathervane. Three large ventilators rise from the
gabled roof of a one-story structure at the northeast
corner. Access to the site is restricted, limiting
further observations.
See
also:
Hexamer General Survey #2274 (1889) "Erben,
Search & Co's Worsted Mill."