Retorderie François Schoeters
THE ABANDONED FACTORY IN BELGIUM
‘Retorderie François Schoeters’ is an abandoned spinning mill in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium. The factory site was abandoned in 2007.
The first textile factory on this site was built in 1880. In the year 1903 industrialist François Schoeters set up shop and opened his textile twining mill. Later, in 1920 the factory was expanded with a dyeing plant and a spinning mill. Eventually in 1964 Schoeters is merged with rival ‘NV Tissages Bruggeman’.
After all Schoeters-Bruggeman closed its doors after 120 years in the textile trade. The cheap prices from upcoming textile factories in Asia were the main reason. Also the company had problems with the environmental permits of the textile dyeing plant. As a result the company’s dyeing department closed in 2007, a year later the twining and spinning activities were shut down.
After the World Wars when the textile trade in Belgium was booming, Schoeters employed about 140 people in his factory. In 1964 he employed only 75 workers and at the day of the closing, in fact only 18 people were left. I visited ‘Retorderie François Schoeters’ in 2009. At the present time the site is changed into a living quarter. Follow this link for more abandoned textile factories.
