Frankenmuth Woolen Mill Spotlight: Frankenmuth, Michigan

Most businesses celebrate 10 years. Some make it to 50. The Frankenmuth Woolen Mill has been running for over 130.

Founded in 1894 by Franz Ranke at 570 S Main Street in Frankenmuth, the mill was built to meet a simple need: Michigan winters are brutal, and families needed warm wool bedding. Local farm flocks provided the raw material, and Ranke’s mill turned it into socks, mittens, quilts, blankets, and batting that kept Mid-Michigan families alive and comfortable through some of the harshest seasons on record.

During World War I, the U.S. Government contracted with the Frankenmuth Woolen Mill to produce 66,000 pairs of wool socks for American soldiers in Europe. The mill outfitted the men who helped end the first World War, then came home and kept making comforters.

Today the mill is owned by Abby and Matt Curtis, only the fourth ownership in over a century of operation. Using equipment that is itself nearly 100 years old, the team hand crafts all-natural wool pillows, mattress toppers, and comforters from materials sourced entirely in the United States. The product has barely changed because the product never needed to change.

The mill’s pivot to online sales during the pandemic brought their American-made wool bedding to customers across the country who had never heard of Frankenmuth before.

Shop at wool-bedding.com or visit the shop in Frankenmuth.

Michigan Small Business Spotlight is proud to feature the Frankenmuth Woolen Mill as Michigan’s oldest continuously operating woolen mill and one of the state’s most remarkable small business stories.