The Weldon Cotton Manufacturing Company was a major component of the industrial development of the Roanoke Navigation Canal starting around 1900. Machinery in the mill was powered by a water wheel on the west side of the building, and the lights were energized by a hydro-electric plant located behind a corn mill near present-day River Falls Park. The company was the only textile plant built directly on the Navigation Canal and produced yarns and underwear. The front building was used for packing, knitting, and finishing, while the rear building was used primarily for spinning. It continued operating through the early part of the twentieth century before new factories built in Roanoke Rapids came to dominate the textile industry.