Tag Archives: Georgia Textile Industry

Julia A. Porter United Methodist Church, 1925, Porterdale

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As evident in this photograph, and the one below, the Julia A. Porter Church commands a high point in downtown Porterdale, dominating the skyline when seen from the Yellow River bridge.

According to a church history, Rev. Firley Baum was appointed the first pastor of the “Porterdale Mission” by the North Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1903. 35 charter members joined the Porterdale Church and first met in the Community Building, and from 1917 until the construction of the present structure, the met in the Porterdale School. Rev. J. J. Mize led a capital campaign for the construction of the new church, which was completed in 1925. James Hyde Porter (1873-1949) was the largest benefactor and asked only that the church be named for his mother, Julia Antoinette McCracken Porter (1838-1926), which it was. Mrs. Porter was known for her charitable work within the mill community and was turned the first shovel of dirt and was present at the dedication. One source states she died a year later but her gravestone records the date as 1926. Her charitable works continue not only within the congregation but through a foundation that still sustains the community.

Porterdale Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Welaunee Inn, 1923, Porterdale

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The Welaunee Inn originally served as housing for unmarried female employees of the Welaunee Mill, essentially a dormitory. Built in the Tudor Revival style in 1923 [some sources date it to 1920], it had 26 rooms. By the 1950s it was often referred to as the Village Inn, or simply, the Inn. It was sold by the mill in 1966. It’s a massive building, located on Broad Street near the center of town, and has rear-facing wings at either end. It’s still in good condition and though empty at present, has so much potential.

It’s best remembered today not as a hotel but, as Darrell Huckaby wrote in the Newton Community Magazine, “…the Center of Georgia’s Culinary Universe”. He noted, “In the 1950s and into the 1960s, Mrs. Effie Boyd served up some of the best Southern cooking this side of Heaven, from fried chicken and baked ham to roast turkey and country fried steak.” He recalled that Brown’s Guide to Georgia, the state’s periodical travel bible for many years, christened it the state’s best meat-and-three year after year after year. He also said that mill workers didn’t get lunch breaks during the week but folks from “town”, i.e. Covington, were faithful patrons. On Sundays, he said, people from everywhere would line up for hours to sample her Southern favorites. And, “If you have all those vegetables, you have to have cornbread and biscuits with which to sop. Effie Boyd’s biscuits were as good as anybody’s biscuits who ever sifted flour, and her cornbread came in pones, muffins or sticks, depending on the day of the week and her mood.”

Porterdale Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Water Tower, 1914, Milstead

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This water tower supplied the mill village of Milstead. It reaches a height of 100 feet and is 14 feet in diameter. It was built by contractor J. B. McQuary for $3000 and was used until 1965.

Shotgun Row, Barnesville

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Neighborhoods of nearly identical shotgun houses were once common sights in Georgia towns and cities where a textile or cotton mill was present. The utilitarian housing was provided as a benefit of employment. Most have vanished in the past thirty years.

Lindale Mill, 1896, Floyd County

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Massachusetts Cotton Mill of Lowell, Massachusetts, opened this mill in 1896, and with 42,000 spindles and 1400 looms, it soon became one of the largest mills in the state. 75 multi-family houses were built to house workers and a free elementary school was also provided. The mill doubled in size in 1903 and continued to add employees. In 1926, it was purchased by the Peperrell Manufacturing Company.

During the Depression, employees built a huge lighted wooden star and strung it between the smokestacks at Christmastime. It has remained a tradition ever since. The mill played an integral role in clothing the military during World War II and remained an integral part of the local economy and community until it closed in 2001.

This structure was part of the mill operation, as well.

This building, now the Christian Life Center of First Baptist Church in Lindale, originally served as the mill auditorium.

Today, the property features a wedding venue and has been used by the movie industry as a set location.

Mill Smokestack, 1898, Aragon

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Aragon Mill was established in 1898 by Wolcott & Campbell of New York and the community bearing its name was linked inextricably to the fortunes of the business. It was purchased by Augustus Julliard in 1900 and saw numerous improvements and significant expansion during his ownership. It became a United Merchants Mill in the 1930s and shut down in 1970. Several efforts to revive the mill were made over the next three decades but most of the complex was lost to fire on 6 August 2002. The smokestack, bearing the name Aragon, is the most significant remaining relic of the mill.

The American labor and social activist Si Kahn penned a song about the loss of mill village culture entitled “Aragon Mill” in the early 1970s.

Goodyear Elementary School, 1930, Rockmart

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This elementary school, built by Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company soon after they opened a factory in Rockmart, is typical of other schools of the era. It is no longer in use. The Rockmart plant of Goodyear Tire & Rubber was responsible, for many years, for the production of the giant balloons used each year in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Willcoxon House, Circa 1860, Sargent

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Colonel John B. Willcoxon built this house around the time he opened a grist mill near Wahoo Creek in the Lodi community. The grist mill opened in 1861 and remained in operation for five years. In 1866, with partners H. J. and George Sargent of Massachusetts, Colonel Willcoxon established the Willcoxon Manufacturing Company to produce cotton rope. The large four-story factory attracted many rural families to the area and primarily employed women and children. This was long before child labor laws prohibited such employment.

In 1888, H. C. Arnall, Sr., and T. G. Farmer purchased the enterprise and renamed it the Wahoo Manufacturing Company. The name of the town was officially changed to Sargent in 1892.

Sargent Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Dixie Mills Spraddle-Roof House, 1890s, LaGrange

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This house is one of several surviving employee housing units of the Dixie Mill textile village in LaGrange. While it has been identified as a “saltbox” in architectural surveys, Scott Reed points out that these are not truly saltboxes, and referred me to John Linley’s term: spraddle-roof. The form was used throughout the neighborhood. Dixie Mill, established in the late 1890s, was the first of many modern textile operations that would dominate LaGrange’s economy throughout most of the 20th century.

W. A. Brannon Mercantile, 1894 + Moreland Knitting Mills, 1904, Moreland

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The two-story building on the right was the W. A. Brannon Mercantile, built in 1894 by R. D. Cole of Newnan. On the left is the Moreland Knitting Mill, built in 1904 as a cotton warehouse. An alley originally separated the two buildings but they were connected by the middle building (narrow storefront with canopied double-door entrance to left of telephone pole) in 1937. Brannon sold the old warehouse for use as a knitting mill in 1920, which was originally known as Moreland Hosiery Mills (1920-1927) and later operated as Moreland Knitting Mills (1927-1968).

National Register of Historic Places