Way Back Wednesday in Calhoun County---April 25-May 1

Calhoun County was an agrarian society prior to the Civil War. One of the most prevalent crops in the county was cotton. There were very few ways for the local farmers to get their crops to market. It was only after the Civil War that transportation and industrialization moved south. The South was recovering from the war and many saw opportunities to open textile mills near the cotton fields. With the addition of railroad spurs in the county, Calhoun was the ideal place to locate a textile mill.

The Southern textile mills had their own mill villages which were the center of social life. The villages included homes for the workers (often of substandard construction), schools, and churches. The workers and their families lived in the houses, shopped at the company store, played on the company ball teams, and studied in the company schools. The earliest cotton mill constructed in Calhoun County was the Anniston Manufacturing Company in Anniston but each of the towns in the county had at least one textile mill within the respective city limits by the early 20th Century.

The Anniston Manufacturing Company was established in 1880 with Alfred Tyler, Daniel Tyler’s son, as president. The mill was constructed specifically to employ the Woodstock Iron Company workers’ wives and children. By 1881, the mill produced cloth bolts and was the largest building in the state of Alabama. Located on 11th Street, not far from the downtown Anniston, the building changed owners and names over the years until 1993, when the Chalk Line Manufacturing Company declared bankruptcy and vacated the site. The building faced an uncertain future for many years until it was torn down in 2000.

To the south of Anniston was Blue Springs Cotton Mill which was built in the early 1880s on Mill Street to manufacture rope and twine. The mill was Oxford largest industrial complex. With a railroad stop in Oxford available, the mill was able to ship products throughout the country. Since the mill was located near a natural spring, it was only logical for the mill to be powered by steam. In the 1970s, the mill stopped production and closed. The building was used as an antique mall for much of the 1980s. By the late 1990s, the city of Oxford chose to tear down the mill and sell the property for retail space. Remnants of the old mill can be seen from I-20’s eastbound lanes.

Just to the north of Anniston was the small town of Blue Mountain. In the mid-1890s, the Anniston Net and Twine Corporation built a plant that included a mill, warehouse, and mill village. Like the other mills, in the county, the structure changed owners and names over the years. It is most closely associated with the name Blue Mountain Industries. The mill shut down in the 2000s and what remains of the buildings can still be seen on Blue Mountain Road.

Jacksonville did not build a cotton mill until after the turn of the 20th Century. George Ide constructed his cotton mill in west Jacksonville near Alexandria Road. By the 1910s, another owner had purchased the mill and changed the name to Profile Cotton Mill. The mill produced cottonseed oil and fertilizer as well as offered ginning services to the local cotton farmers. The mill changed hands numerous times over the years who also changed the mill’s name. The last name change was to Union Yarn Mills which closed in the early 2000s. Today, the mill buildings face an uncertain fate.

Piedmont saw the construction of Coosa Manufacturing Company begin in the early 1890s. Albert Thatcher and Jacob Barlow opened their mill to spin cotton and a few years later merged the company with their spinning company. The Piedmont cotton mill produced combed yarns. Like other mills in the area, the mill village was built adjacent to the mill building and included a YMCA, grade school and hospital. The mill, located at the corner of East Ladiga and Barlow Streets, closed in 1995 and was recently torn down.

None of the textile mills are still in operation in Calhoun County and only parts of Blue Mountain Industries and Union Yarn Mill remains standing. The cotton fields that once made up a good portion of the rural crops are also gone. Occasionally, while driving in the rural areas of the county a small cotton field can be found but those fields are becoming less and less frequent with each passing year. But it is not only the textile mills that no longer exist, much of the industrial complex that built Calhoun County has gone as well.

To learn more about the history of Calhoun County pick up a copy of Images of America: Calhoun County (ISBN 978-0738589985), Anniston (ISBN 978-0738506012), or Anniston Revisited (ISBN 978-1467114752) by Kimberly O’Dell.