WEST WARWICK — The assets of Riverpoint Lace Works, the textile dyeing and finishing company that has operated on Main Street for more than 80 years, were to have gone on the auction block this morning.

But the company’s court-appointed receiver yesterday postponed the sale for a week to give two prospective buyers time to consider purchase the business and keep it going.

The auction has been rescheduled for 10:30 a.m. next Wednesday — and no later — at the plant site, 825 Main St., said receiver Theodore Orson, of the law firm of Orson and Brusini.

“With approximately 50 workers here, we’re doing everything we possibly can to save jobs,” Orson said. “If we can sell it as an ongoing business, we can expect to get a lot more money than we would if we were just to sell equipment. We’d be doing creditors a service.”

Riverpoint Lace boasts that its plant, erected in 1809 as the Lippitt Manufacturing company, is the “oldest continuously operated textile mill in the United States.” Its current owners acquired it in 1925.

Over the decades, the privately owned company has seen many of its competitors move their operations overseas. And it became increasingly difficult to operate to keep its own head above water.

Last fall Riverpoint Lace petitioned the Superior Court to place it in receivership, and Orson has been operating the business since November.

The company had long been trying to dig itself out from a deluge of mounting debts and bills.

In July 2000, its gas was turned off for nonpayment, and payroll checks were late. After the scheduled week of summer vacation, the company was saved by a few unexpected receipts, but the reprieve didn’t last long.

By February 2001, Riverpoint Lace was facing the threat of foreclosure by what was then Fleet Bank. Eventually, on Thanksgiving Day of that year, an anonymous donor interested in investing in the company put up $280,000 to stave off the auction block.

Over the years, the company has come to the Town Council asking for leniency on its property taxes. And until recently, the council always agreed, said council President Edward A. Giroux.

“We’ve forgiven and forgiven and forgiven more and more times over the past years I’ve been here to help them stay in business,” said Giroux. “I know they’ve missed deadline after deadline. Maybe, where it is now, we were just postponing the inevitable.”

The owners came before the council late last year in hopes of getting another deferment, which the council rejected. Contacted yesterday afternoon, the tax assessor’s office refused to provide information about delinquent taxes, if any.

There’s no magic number the company is looking at to pay off all of its debts, Orson, the receiver, said yesterday. Creditors have until April 4 to submit their claims, he said.

Whether Riverpoint Lace will be sold as a going concern or piecemeal remains to be seen, Orson said.

“We’ll tally up the way that yields the most net dollars and sell it in that manner,” Orson said.

“It’s my belief the way to net the most money is to sell it as a going concern.”

Selling the company as a continuing business presents another advantage, Orson said: “It would be tremendous if we could keep the history alive.”

tbuford@projo.com