In the middle of a weekday shift in 2002, employees at Scranton Lace Company were informed by the company's vice president that the company would shutter its doors "effective immediately." The facility, which had been running for more than 100 years and was the world's leading producer of Nottingham lace, was quickly abandoned, and photos show half-finished material, looms and spools eerily left behind.

Photographer Liz Roll travels the U.S. exploring abandoned industry sites, and her collection of abandoned textile factories, shown in the slideshow above, have the bizarre, lively colors of once valued fabrics and threads now left abandoned for decades. Machinery untouched for years is covered a thick layer of dust. Unbroken reading glasses sit atop a ledger, as if an employee just got distracted by another task, and will be back momentarily. Old, peeling mannequins stand naked, just waiting to fulfill their duty of displaying beautiful garments, but they never again will. Piles of lace that will never dress up a table underneath a holiday dinner lay yellowing in corners and in bins.

(MORE: Photographer Liz Roll Documents Abandoned Restaurants and Bars)

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It's an eerie reminder of how a rapidly changing economy can gut entire industries. Roll snapped photos in textile factories throughout the eastern U.S., from Pennsylvania to Virginia. But Scranton Lace Company makes up the bulk of the photo collection, and the story behind the company is rich and all too familiar.

Scranton Lace Company was among Scranton, Pennsylvania's biggest employers. Life for the employees revolved around the factory, as the campus, which spanned eight acres and 34 buildings, housed everything from an infirmary to a gym, a barber shop, a bowling alley and a movie theater. But risky investments, according to PBS Newshour, and the company's inability to compete with technological advancements forced the factory's closure in 2002.

While the buildings and their contents have expectedly experienced some weathering over time, the factory's iconic clock tower has been preserved, and a redevelopment project was just revealed this year, which plans to restore many of the buildings' original features, such as its exposed brick and timber beams, The Citizens Voice reported this August. The residential and commercial project, named Lace Village, is planned to include dozens of townhouses, greenspace, restaurants, a coffee shop, a yoga studio, an event space and more. The plan uses both existing structures and incorporates new construction, according to The Citizens Voice.

Roll told weather.com that a campus restoration has been attempted before at Scranton Lace, but the project failed.

"He [the developer] would let explorers go in while he was there which is how we got to go both times," Roll told said. "The first time everything was still pretty pristine. I guess he had been getting things stolen so the next time he had all the nice things locked up in a cage. It was sad to see the place go to seed with no access but I am glad someone is trying again."

Click through the slideshow above to see images of some of America's abandoned textile factories, and perhaps a last glance of Scranton Lace Company before it becomes something entirely different.

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