Established by T. Milton Carroll, Sr. (1880-1945) in 1903, Carroll’s Steam Laundry opened on Stokes Street with one horse-drawn delivery wagon and a handful of employees. In 1910, he built an office here at Franklin and Adams Streets and other departments were added over the years, including dry cleaning, fur storage, and rug cleaning. By 1953, Carroll’s brick plant took up a full block bordered by Adams, Franklin and Warren Streets, had a fleet of nine one-ton trucks, a staff of 100 employees, and their office here.

One of the city’s well-known and early decoy carvers, William Edward Sampson (fondly called “Pop Sampson”) drove a truck for Carroll’s from 1920 to 1925. And Helen Vincenti recalls that her mother worked on the handkerchief pressing machine. Cleo Bandy also worked there and used to go across the street to the “Sugar Bowl” for lunch.

T. Milton Carroll, Sr. lived at 500 Commerce Street for decades and served as Mayor of Havre de Grace from 1913-1915. The National Laundry Journal of 1920 shows an advertisement for a “two-roll flat work ironer” for sale by Milton Carroll at this location. Milton Carroll also had a laundry facility later in Washington, D.C. where it is said to have had a contract for the White House laundry. During a fierce storm in 1952, T. Milton Carroll Sr’s daughter-in-law, Frances Elma Carroll (wife of T. Milton “Dutch” Carroll, Jr.), was outside in a conversation when she was struck by a falling tree and killed at the age of 39 years.

The laundry by the 1960s had about fifteen trucks that would collect people’s laundry and deliver it back in three days. However, disaster struck the family again in January 1964 when the property was destroyed by fire, causing almost $100,000 in damage. It was reported that 125 firefighters from Havre de Grace, Port Deposit, Perryville, Level and Aberdeen, battled the fire with 300,000 gallons of water to save adjoining homes. Locals said that the heat of the fire made the paint on their houses bubble and caused the evacuation of all the nearby houses that resulted in their having to escape in the snow in pyjamas and slippers.

Today, commercial office buildings with North Adams Street addresses have replaced the large Carroll’s Laundry buildings.