In 1900, nine Bonham businessmen formed a corporation to build and operate a cotton mill near this site, taking advantage of Bonham's location on the northern edge of the blackland prairie, where cotton was one of the area's principal crops. Opening in 1901 as the town's first significant industrial plant, the Bonham Cotton Mill included company homes and free day care for employees' children. In 1920, it merged with Consolidated Textile Corporation of the East Coast, though John C. Saunders continued to manage the mill until his death in 1934. The mill closed in 1930 with the onset of the Great Depression, but Bonham businessmen rechartered it in 1931 as a Texas corporation. After reaching peak production in the 1940s, it declined in the years after World War II, merged with the Brenham Cotton Mill in 1958, and eventually closed in the 1970s. For many years during the 20th century, it was Bonham's principal employer and had a major impact on the city's social and economic history.