The First Large Factories

The cotton spinning mill of Loggos - Kirtsis and Tourpalis Company commences operations in 1874. E. Stougiannakis notes that this factory "... was useful as an Academy of Industry, at which many engineers, specialized labourers, etc. were educated...". Today, owned by the Municipality of Naoussa, it houses the Visual Arts Workshops of the Cultural Organisation and the Technology Management Department of the University of Macedonia.

By the time of Naoussa's liberation in 1912, two more cotton spinning mills (Bilis - Tsitsis and Co. in 1891 and Goutas and Karatzias in 1890/1903) and two fleece factories, ("ERIA", in 1907 and Lanaras and Pehlivanos in 1909) were founded and operated having as their object the complete processing of fleece and the manufacture of woollen material, which was used mainly for the needs of the army (khaki), initially of the Turkish one and subsequently of the Greek army.

"Despite the misfortune of Turkish rule...", Dimitris Xatzopoulos mentions, "in C. Macedonia a small but flourishing industrial effort had been created, which was founded by entrepreneurs from the good-peopled city of Naoussa with its pure Greek population. They first were inspired in using the famous waterfalls of the Vermio rainfalls as a driving force...". As Konstantinos Galatis also describes in his relevant study of 1932, "the residents of Naoussa are perhaps the most compact industrial population of Greece. They created the industries of Edessa and Veroia, which depend on the hydraulic power of the Vodas and Tripotamos Rivers..."

Most of the industrial facilities above mentioned were characteristically built on the banks of the Arapitsa River, from which by independent consecutive dams, the quantities of water required to provide motion to their hydro-turbines were pumped. These waters would return to their natural recipient after their use, and would be used to provide motion for the remaining factories towards the river's end.