Belding, the old "Silk City"

Belding still goes by “Silk City,” a nod to the industry that built the town. Starting in the 1860s, the Belding brothers grew a silk-thread business here into one of the country’s major silk manufacturers, and silk woven in Belding was sold around the world. At its height the mills employed well over a thousand workers — many of them young women — in a town of only a few thousand people.

You can still see that history downtown. The Belrockton, built in 1906, was the last of three company dormitories for the single women who worked the mills; today it’s the Belding Museum. The old Richardson Silk Mill along the Flat River has been turned into apartments and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The silk mills closed in the 1930s when synthetic fibers took over, but the buildings — and the nickname — remain.

The Belding Museum at the historic Belrockton is at 108 Hanover Street.