The 45'X 100' stone cotton mill was built from 1865-1868, this being a one story affair. The area had been explored in 1852 by a party of Mormen men, who realized that the area would sustain crops of cotton, flax, and sugar cane among other southeastern U. S. crops.

In 1857, 38 families originally from the southeastern states were moved down to the Wasdhington/St. George area from the Salt Lake City area to populate the locality and to work in the proposed new cotton mill. The year 1865 saw the beginning of construction, with large timbers being carted by wagons from Cedar Mountain by two men and three stone masons setting the rock.

The mill began operations in 1868. Business was good with 1100 pounds of cloth shipped to California at $1.25/ib. while 1600 lbs were kept behind as stock. Some of the machinery to run the mill came from Brigham Young's mill near Salt Lake City in Parley Canyon. The mill started with six men in charge of operations.

The necessity for expansion was apparent almost from the first, and in 1870, the 2nd & 3rd floors were added. By the next year, new machinery enabled the mill to produce woolen product also. It sold this same year to the Rio Virgin Manufacturing Co. The name resulted from the fact that Mill Creek(Machine Creek) flows into the Virgin River a short way downstream from the mill.

By 1985, the mill had stood vacant for 75 years, when Franklin Steheli, the last operator, closed the cotton mill in 1910.

The Civilian Conservation Corps used the factory grounds for there campground in the 1930's, the building a little northeast of the cotton mill.

Norma Cannizzaro saved the mill from almost sure demolition, when she bought the Washington Bank's interest in the property in 1985. She moved from California and began to renovate as time and money permitted. She opened part of it up as a community social hall and was instrumental in getting the structure placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The next owners were the Hyrum Smith family. They renamed the mill the "Rio Virgin Cotton Mill" and continued to allow social events to be held there. The current owner, Craig Keough, bought the mill in 1998 and converted the lower floor and much of the grounds to a nursery and landscaping business, of which he owns six others in the Utah, Nevada & Arizona area. The Old Washington Cotton Factory has now become the Star Nursery in Washington, Utah, hopefully another step to insure it preservation for the future.