The Baltic Mill headrace was the channel that carried water from the stone bulkhead to turbines in the Baltic cotton mill, stretching about 800 feet from the bulkhead to the back of the mill. The original Baltic Mill was built in 1856 after the A&W Sprague Manufacturing Co. bought the 300-acre site, and the village of Baltic was built to house and serve mill workers. Because the mill stood on the east bank of the Shetucket in Lisbon while the village on the west bank was in Franklin, the town of Sprague was established in 1861 to unite parts of the two towns. The first mill was one of the largest cotton mills in the world, measuring 630 feet long, 68 feet wide, and six stories high including basement and attic, with 70,700 spindles, 1,750 looms, and 1,100 employees. Powered by water until 1955, the mill depended on a dam on the Shetucket River that held water in a reservoir and diverted it through a 1,700-foot raceway, first through the headrace to the turbines and then through a tailrace back to the river. Water passed through gates in the bulkhead controlled from a catwalk above, and the headrace, built to withstand tons of pressure from fast-moving water, was a notable engineering work. In 1895 the mill expanded with a 40,000-square-foot dyeing and weaving shed, requiring more water power, so the headrace was doubled in width and four additional larger sluiceway gates were added. The headrace has remained above water since the dam broke in 1955 and was never repaired because the mill no longer needed to generate its own power. Although fire destroyed 90 percent of the Baltic Mills in 1999, the surviving remains still shape Sprague’s sense of identity, and restoration has begun on parts of the mill and headrace as enduring evidence of the area’s industrial heritage and ingenuity.