As I understand it, what is now the parking lot at the Mills Falls Marketplace and Hotel, close to the big intersection there, were two very ugly factory buildings, built with cinder blocks construction, that manufactured asbestos shingles used for residential siding on homes. Driving around Laconia, it is easy to spot homes sided with asbestos shingles, but not so much in Meredith?
www.asbestos.com/companies/amatex-corporation/ One paragraph down the bottom mentions Meredith, and manufacturing with asbestos into the late 1970's.
Anyone from around here still alive that worked there .... cough, cough, pained cough, relief wheeze?
https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/fo...orgive-tragic/ ... April 1986: talks about Meredith fighting for air and dying from lung asbestosis or mesothelioma .... next time you are stopped at the traffic lights there ...... roll down the window, take a long deep breath .... and think about those people working there and inhaling that asbestos dust ...
"The perfect place to open up (or buy) an asbestos plant."
"This means that workers will be dying excruciating deaths from their exposure to asbestos in Meredith until at least the year 2000."
"When Amatex closed it down in late 1982, a local developer turned it into a stylish shopping mall, Mills Falls Marketplace."
"A visitor would have no idea what used to go on there - and a resident is unlikely to tell him."