Near Lawson, Missouri, Watkins Woolen Mill State Park and State Historic Site preserves one of the nation’s best-preserved 19th-century woolen mills along with its machinery, records, and the wider community built around it. Waltus L. Watkins began Bethany Plantation in 1839, built the mill in 1859 and 1860, and added worker housing, creating an early planned community whose largely self-sufficient economy centered on yarn and wool cloth production. The complex also includes the Watkins house, Franklin School, and Mt. Vernon Baptist Church. Mill operations peaked until 1886, then declined, but the property’s extraordinary survival later earned major historic and engineering landmark recognition.