Woolen Company and refurbished them with modern equipment. The Champlain Mill was built in 1912. By 1922, the American Woolen Company was the state's largest employer and Winooski Falls split from Colchester, incorporating itself as the City of Winooski. In 1927, there was a major flood where the dams were destroyed and all mills suffered heavy damage, from which some never recovered. The mills closed in 1954. Child labor Lewis Hine Lewis Hine (September 26, 1874, Oshkosh, Wisconsin – November 3, 1940) was an American sociologist and photographer. Hine used his camera as a tool for social reform. His photographs were instrumental in changing the child labor laws in the United States. In 1908, he became the photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), leaving his former teaching position. Over the next decade, Hine documented child labor in American industry to aid the NCLC's lobbying efforts to end the practice. In 1909 he visited Burlington, and took photographs in Chace Mill. These demonstrate the employment practices where children with French Canadian names are seen to be working in responsible posts, and equally they provide images of the machines in use at the time. Mule spinning was relatively rare in the United States; where ring spinning predominated. Buildings Burlington Woolen Mill This five-story mill was built of local stone over a canal that drove its centrally placed waterwheel. It was built in 1837 and destroyed by fire in 1961. A timber dam was constructed across the lower falls to provide a head for this wheel. The timber dam was destroyed in the floods of 1927. As of 1921 the Burlington Mills employed 1,500 workers who produced items such as Kerseys, Friezes, Meltons, Thibets and worsted dress goods. Chace Cotton Mill A three-story, 34-bay brick-built mill built on the site of a previous mill. Water for the waterwheel entered through two head gates connected to the upper dam. One gate opened to the working wheel, while the other lead to the wheel pit of a former wheel, a wallower passes the rotary motion to each floor, which contain line shafts. The Lewis Hine photograph shows that mill had spinning mules with a short travel. The mill was built by the Burlington Mill Company in 1892, and changed its name when it was purchased by the Chace Mills of Fall River in 1912. Champlain Mill A five-story mill, of 28 bays by