The Rock Hill Herald announced on April 7, 1887 – “A citizens meeting was held in Laurens for the purpose of planning a cotton factory. A committee of 50 men were appointed to sell stock and a committee of four were established to secure a charter.”
City Directories and History: This is a grouping of many of the mill houses listed on the historic survey report on Mill Street in 1982. Many of these dwelling have been demolished.
“One of the most important industries of the place is the brick manufactory, which carries only a capital stock of $5,000 but uses the most improved machinery for the manufacture of the brick. It is expected that this industry will be called upon at no very distant day to furnish the material for the long talked-of and much- desired “Laurens Cotton Factory.” The scheme is to have erected by September 1888 a first-class factory at an estimated cost of about $200,000. Of this amount $63,000. has already been put up, and the likelihood is that the factory will assume definite shape within the time limited for its construction. When the factory is built at least one-half of the cotton that goes by the Richmond and Danville to West Point and by the Georgia Central to Augusta and Savannah will remain at home. The average shipment from Laurens is about 11,000 to 12,000 bales [per year].”
Reprinted from South Carolina in the 1880s: A Gazetteer by J.H. Moore, Sandlapper Publishing Company – 1989
The Rock Hill Record reported on May 31, 1909 – “The Laurens Cotton Mill will build an extension of 80 ft on the building and has awarded the contract to Gallivan Building Co of Greenville, S.C. The plant produces fancy shirting, sateens and narrow print cloth.”
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