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Avondale Mills
The Avondale Mills were a system of textile mills located predominantly in Alabama, but also in Georgia and South Carolina, with headquarters in Birmingham, and later in Sylacauga, Alabama. The Birmingham neighborhood of Avondale was chosen to be the site of the first mill, hence the naming of the company. Founded in 1897, the mills employed thousands of Alabamians throughout its 109-year history until they closed in 2006. Avondale Mills was founded in 1897 by a consortium of investors including the Trainer family of Chester, Pennsylvania, the future governor of Alabama, Braxton Bragg Comer, and a group of Birmingham civic leaders including Frederick Mitchell Jackson Sr. The mills refined the plentiful cotton from Alabama fields and, at its peak, devoured 20% of the entire state of Alabama's cotton production. The owners and operators of Avondale Mills were noted not only for progressive stances with regards to the overall well being of their workers, but also for conditions of chi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avondale Mill Historic District
The Avondale Mill Historic District is a former mill village in Pell City, Alabama. Part of the Avondale Mills, the area is architecturally significant for the first sawtooth roofed mill in Alabama, and the mill village represents a relatively intact example of an early 20th century company town. The mill and its village were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. The mill closed in 2006, and burned in 2008 while being dismantled for scrap. History The mill was built in 1902–1903 on the northwestern outskirts of Pell City, at the confluence of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad and Southern Railway (U.S.), Southern Railway lines. Sumter Cogswell purchased the of land in 1890 after stopping to change trains in the town. By 1902, he had convinced Atlanta industrialist George W. Pratt to build a cotton mill on the land. The following year, the Pell City Manufacturing Company began operational with 21,000 Spindle (textiles), spindles and 640 looms. In 1919 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
