In the late 1880's, Kearney business leaders envisioned the city as a major manufacturing center, launching enterprises that included paper, woolen, and oatmeal mills, plow and canning factories, brick works, and machine shops. The Kearney Cotton Mill was part of this venture and was financed in part by a Massachusetts firm. When completed in 1892, it was the largest manufacturing plant in Nebraska, a two-story brick structure that cost over $400,000 to construct. Raw cotton was shipped from the South by barge and railroad, and at peak efficiency the mill employed about 450 workers and produced 26,000 yards of unbleached muslin daily, some of which was shipped to faraway places such as the Orient. The economic depression of the early 1890's ended most of Kearney's new businesses, and in 1901 the cotton mill closed because of economic pressures, including high freight rates and labor costs; during its existence it never operated at a profit. The building then stood vacant until the Midway Amusement Park was established there in the spring of 1920, when a swimming pool was built in the basement and the main building was used as a dance pavilion, before the mill and park facilities were destroyed by fire on March 18, 1922.