One of Mapleville’s historic textile mills is reflected in the large mill pond in the center of the village. Its first manufacturing facility was constructed in 1845 by Darius Lawton.

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

Since 2005, when a metals recycling company, Metech, left Burrillville, taking 42 jobs with it, the old Mapleville Mills have remained vacant.

But an effort to explore a possible mixed-use redevelopment at the former textile mills would get a push if a grant proposal for an architectural study of the site is successful this year.

A smart-growth reuse of the mills would be a boon to Mapleville, according to Thomas J. Kravitz, the town’s director of economic development.

Mike Marra, of Providence, said he has created a nonprofit organization called the Mapleville Business Exchange to explore possibilities for reusing the mill buildings.

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According to Town Historian Patricia A. Mehrtens, Darius Lawton owned the first mill in Mapleville, which was built in 1845. Lawton also built “a beautiful Gothic Revival cottage” at 33 Mapleville Main St., surrounded by an iron fence, “on the hill overlooking his mill,” according to Mehrtens, but that historic house was destroyed in 2003 in a fire that also took the life of a local woman.

In 1900, Joseph Fletcher bought the mill property, repairing the old mill and building a new brick mill, named the Coronet Worsted Company, on the other side of Mapleville Main Street, Mehrtens said. Fletcher’s improvements also included construction of new streets, the installation of electric service, the repair of older housing built for mill workers, and construction of 54 new tenements for the workers, according to Mehrtens.

In these years, two churches were also built in Mapleville: a Catholic church, Our Lady of Good Help (1907), and the Mapleville Methodist Episcopal Church, which was dedicated in 1909.

Houses on the market in Mapleville last week ranged in price from $159,000 for a short-sale property, a three-bedroom, one-bath Colonial built in 1900 with 1,368 square feet of space, to $378,000 for a four-bedroom, two-bath Colonial built in 1996, with 2,016 square feet of space.

Five new condos are now for sale at 33 Mapleville Main Street, all priced at $259,900, each with two bedrooms, two full baths and one half bath.

POPULATION: (Burrillville, 2000) 15,796

MEDIAN HOUSE PRICE: (Burrillville, 2007) $255,000

INTERESTING FACT: Half a mile from Mapleville, another mill village, the now-deserted Gazza, named for a special kind of wool made there, Ben-Gazza, thrived until the mill was struck by lightning on Aug. 12, 1888, and was completely destroyed by fire, according to Burrillville town historian Patricia A. Mehrtens.

cdunn@projo.com