I found your web page while doing some research on a building here in Rockford, IL.   If you don’t know this already, I thought you might enjoy the information I found.   My information shows that William Ziock owned The St. Charles Woolen Mills of St. Charles, MO.  He was the supplier of yarn for the Rockford Mitten Co.  In 1885 he purchased the Rockford Mitten Co. and it was renamed Rockford Mitten and Hosiery Co.   In 1918 it was changed to Rockford Textile Mills, Inc.      The company was located in Rockford’s knitting district  (we had the inventors of the knitting machines) and a building known as the William Ziock building was constructed in two phases between 1918 and 1924.   The Ziock Building was long recognized as Rockford’s first skyscraper (it was 12 stories).    Later it became known as the Amerock Building (of Amerock hardware, another Rockford original).& nbsp;      Some of the info I found refers to the building being owned by Ziock Industries, Inc. but I don’t see verification of that company name.

 

The building still stands although it’s been vacant for a number of years as Amerock was purchased by Newell and operations were removed from Rockford for production overseas.   Rockford is currently planning urban redevelopment of the building intending to convert it to 85 luxury condo units as the building stands in our downtown riverfront sector.  

 

As I said, thought you might enjoy the info if you didn’t already have it.

 

K. Havrilesko