Indian blankets bring mill’s looms to life

LEWISTON, Maine — The Bates Fabric Mill’s fortunes rose and sagged with New England’s textile industry and the popularity of bedspreads, including a best-seller named after George Washington.

Bates is digging even deeper into American history for its new product line — Indian blankets bearing traditional symbols.

“I’m an optimist and I’m confident we’re going to make it. The Indian blankets will be a help,” said Fred Lebel, president of the struggling company.

Lebel shouted over the din of motorized looms as he chronicled the history of the cavernous 150-year-old mill. In recent decades, most textile work went south or overseas. Comforters became the bedcover of choice for many during the energy crisis. The economic recession took its toll, as did a series of ownership changes.

“We used to sell over 50,000 bedspreads a week, now its 6,000 or 7,000,” Lebel said.

Like many Bates workers, Lebel’s parents and grandparents worked here. That was in Bates’ heyday. In the 1950s, the company employed 6,500 people and operated five plants in Maine.

Now, Bates’ single mill, along a dirty canal built by Benjamin E. Bates in 1850 to power his new enterprise, takes up a tenth of its old 1 million-square-foot building. It employs 75 people, up from 48 a few months ago.

Bates doesn’t even own its building or its equipment anymore. The city of Lewiston seized the mill complex and equipment for a long-overdue tax bill.

Many of the mill’s looms lie idle. But for three shifts a day, five days a week, two looms are turning out multi-colored, all-wool Indian blankets. The mill produces 250 of the blankets a week as it fills the growing demands of a new enterprise that has its roots in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas.

The blankets are produced for a company called Boucher Boys & The Indian. The Boucher Boys are Arizona brothers Jerry and David, who provide salesmanship and capital, respectively. The Indian is David Dozier, a Dallas advertising executive who spent his boyhood on New Mexico’s Santa Clara pueblo and says he wants to make sure the blankets have a story and some authenticity.

Dozier, who’s one-quarter Indian, hired his cousin’s husband, Pima Indian Terry Enos, to design the blankets’ motifs. Each of the designs is based on an Indian legend.

That input differentiates the Lewiston-made blankets from those mass-produced in Mexico, said Dozier.

“When I see a Mexican blanket that has Indian designs, to me, that’s just zig zags. The artist didn’t know what he was doing or why he was doing it,” he said.

The blankets are called Navi Pesanda, or “my blanket” in the Tewa language of some Pueblos in New Mexico. Dozier said everything in the blankets, from the bold motifs to the earthy colors, “has a meaning.”

The two designs currently being woven feature a frog and a thunderbird. An eagle and bear claw motif are in the works. Also upcoming are smaller woven throws and Indian rugs.

The blankets sell for about $200 apiece at specialty shops around the nation. They are also featured in Bloomingdale’s catalog.

Dozier’s new business carries on traditions from his Indian and non-Indian heritage. His grandfather, Missouri schoolteacher Thomas Dozier, married an Indian woman, lived on a reservation and formed a trading company that sold blankets and other goods.

Dozier admitted that he wasn’t too enthused when the Boucher brothers first approached him with the idea of mass producing Indian blankets. Then he decided that woven blankets could be duplicated without debasing Indian artistry.

“You can’t duplicate a piece of pottery. … You can’t duplicate a bracelet or a necklace. … But the design of the blankets is what is unique. We haven’t changed what is the real art, which is (the) design,” he said.

Dozier said it took months to track down a mill that was willing to take on the new project and had the weaving capability to meet his demands.

“A lot of manufacturers won’t pay attention to you unless you’re huge. We had no sales. We didn’t know if these designs would sell. We didn’t know if they would manufacture right,” he said.