Wool blankets and throws woven in Faribault, Minnesota since 1865
✅ Made in USA
Where Faribault Mill products are made
Faribault, Minnesota
The mill sits on the Cannon River in Faribault, and production still runs inside the 1892 mill building, where century-old machines work alongside modern equipment.
A fully vertical mill
Faribault describes itself as one of the last fully integrated vertical mills in the country, meaning every step from raw fiber to finished blanket happens under one roof.
More than 20 steps
The company states each blanket moves through more than 20 steps over roughly 10 days, and that it takes 22 steps and at least 12 skilled artisans to finish a Faribault product.
Faribault Mill states its blankets and throws are made in the USA at its Minnesota mill, and that its own-brand socks are knit in the USA. Two points are worth being specific about. First, the mill’s description of its woolen process begins with the selection of imported and domestic fleeces — the manufacturing is American, but the raw wool is not exclusively American. Second, Faribault acquired the Maine cotton weaver Brahms Mount in 2022, and those goods are woven in Maine rather than Minnesota. The company’s own sock collection also carries some third-party product alongside its own, so check the individual listing if origin matters to you.
The story
Faribault Mill was founded in 1865, just after the Civil War, by Carl Henry Klemer, a German immigrant who began with a single carding machine powered by a horse named Jenny. The mill grew up alongside the frontier it supplied, producing durable woolen blankets for settlers moving west.
The company’s own history ties it to the country’s hard years as much as its good ones. Faribault says it supplied warmth to pioneers, to families through the Depression, and to U.S. troops in both World Wars — roughly 100,000 blankets after America entered the First World War in 1917.
The mill closed and was brought back to life in one of the better-known American industrial revivals, and it has kept expanding since. In 2022 Faribault acquired Brahms Mount, a Maine cotton weaving mill with its own long history, bringing a second American textile plant into the company.
Today the company runs public weekend factory tours and a mill store, and publishes an unusually candid factory-seconds program with a documented list of 16 wool flaws and 4 cotton flaws that can send a blanket to the seconds rack. That is a level of transparency very few textile brands offer.
Why they matter
Wool blankets are one of the most thoroughly offshored categories in American home goods. Most of what is sold as a wool throw in the United States is woven overseas from commodity yarn, and the vertical mills that once did the whole job domestically have almost all closed.
Faribault Mill is the counter-example, and it matters because it kept the hard parts. Carding, spinning, dyeing and weaving are capital-heavy, skill-heavy operations — exactly what companies shed first when they move to contract manufacturing. Keeping all of them inside one Minnesota building is what makes the claim meaningful rather than cosmetic.
Buying a Faribault Mill blanket funds a working mill, the machinists who keep century-old looms running, and the apprenticeship path that lets those skills pass to another generation. A 160-year-old mill is not preserved by nostalgia; it is preserved by orders.
Featured products
Browse Faribault Mill wool blankets, throws and home textiles available now in the Buy American store.
Frequently asked questions
Where are Faribault Mill blankets made?
At the company’s own mill on the Cannon River in Faribault, Minnesota. Faribault states that every step — dyeing, carding, spinning, weaving, finishing and inspection — happens under that one roof.
Is Faribault Mill wool American?
The manufacturing is. The wool itself is not exclusively American: the mill’s own description of its woolen process begins with the selection of imported and domestic fleeces. Faribault is transparent about this, and it is typical of American wool mills.
How long has Faribault Mill been in business?
Since 1865. The company was founded by Carl Henry Klemer with a carding machine powered by a single horse, and it states it has been looming products in Faribault, Minnesota for 160 years.
What is Faribault Mill best known for?
Its 100% wool bed blankets and throws, including long-running licensed collections. It also owns Brahms Mount, a Maine cotton weaving mill acquired in 2022, whose goods are woven in Maine rather than Minnesota.