Paramount Knitting Company Mill (G. Tipler photo, 2010)

Paramount Knitting Company Mill (G. Tipler photo, 2010)

Paramount Knitting Company Mill (G. Tipler photo, 2010)

Paramount Knitting Company Mill (G. Tipler photo, 2010)

Paramount Knitting Company Mill
222 Madison Street, Beaver Dam, Dodge County
Dates of construction: 1883, 1911, 1930, 1937

The former Paramount Knitting Company Mill is associated with one of Beaver Dam's largest manufacturers. It is also the only relatively intact industrial building once powered by the Beaver Dam River. Set on the south bank of the river and oriented along Madison Street, the four-story red brick mill building served cotton milling from 1881 to 1906 and hosiery manufacturing from 1911 until 1934. Paramount Knitting Company was the parent corporation for Bear Brand Hosiery Company a prominent company in the hosiery industry nation-wide. The Beaver Dam plant housed Bear Brand Hosiery Mill No. 3.

The Bear Brand Hosiery plant closed in 1934, in the heat of a labor strike. The City of Beaver Dam acquired the property soon afterward and, in 1937, coaxed the Milwaukee-based Weyenberg Shoe Company to open a plant in the building, which the company occupied until 2005.