The Riverside Division buildings of Dan River Inc. represent several stages in the century-long development of one of America’s major textile companies, including the firm’s first cotton mill at the corner of Main and Bridge streets in downtown Danville. The complex consists of six cotton mills and a flour mill. Also in the extensive assemblage are two masonry dams, warehouses, a dye house, a machine shop, a research building, the remains of a power canal, and a number of support buildings such as boiler houses and coal bunkers. The major architectural styles range from the relatively small, brick vernacular mills and outbuildings of the “cotton factory fever” of the 1880s and 1890s to the massive concrete modernist structure of the 1920s. The Dan River Inc. Riverside Division complex forms an important component of the industrial image of this Southern manufacturing city.

[The original 1982 nomination for the Dan River Inc. Riverside Division was listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register only. An updated 1999 nomination was listed in the VLR (3/15/2000) and the NRHP (5/11/2000).  The historic buildings and structures within the Riverside Division were demolished in 2008, and the district has been delisted from both registers.]