unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
and
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
North Carolina
North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...
, United States. Its population was 530 as of the 2020 census. Cliffside has a
post office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...
company town
A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...
by Raleigh Rutherford (R.R.) Haynes, who established a
textile mill
Textile manufacturing or textile engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful good ...
there on the Second Broad River in 1899. Haynes had previously helped to build up the mills and factories of nearby Henrietta and Caroleen High Shoals, a former community in this vicinity, was a post office as early as 1828.
It was entirely owned by Haynes and his business partners, who owned all of the property, homes and farmland in the town. The farm acreage was rented to tenant farmers, and the homes were rented to Haynes' employees at low rates. Homes cost about $0.25 weekly for each room in the house. Because it was privately owned, it had no town council or city limits, and minimal crime.
Town residents had to have at least one member of their household employed by Haynes, and had to obey certain town rules, such as not keeping dogs on their property. The town reached its height in the 1950s, when it had about 2,500 residents. Millionaire Earl Owensby originally hailed from Cliffside, and built Earl Owensby Studios just 10 miles from the town.Cliffside Public School was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...