Telling Stories, Connecting Communities

Tag: Haralson

Buchanan

This community’s short-lived textile industry provided jobs for many of the county’s citizens.


Visit


Things to Do

  • Buchanan-Haralson Public Library, 145 Van Wert Street: This library hosts a local history room and images that include the region’s textile history.
  • Historic Haralson County Courthouse, 145 Van Wert Street: Located in downtown Buchanan and constructed in 1891, it is one of the oldest working courthouses in Georgia. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
  • Little Creek One Room Schoolhouse, 159 Van Wert Street: In existence since 1871, it is the last one-room schoolhouse left in Haralson County, and one of the few in the state. The building was operational until 1932.

Places to See

The following properties are not open to the public, but you can view them from the exterior to learn more about the buildings that supported the textile industry here.

  • Cluett Building, 155 Van Wert Street: While this building houses a business that is not textile-related, the original textile building still stands.

History

Founded as the county seat of Haralson County in 1856 and named in honor of President James Buchanan, the city of Buchanan’s textile heritage began with Cluett, Peabody, and Company. In 1947, Cluett, Peabody and Company opened a shirt manufacturing facility in Buchanan, producing Arrow Shirts. As part of the Southern division of Cluett, Peabody & Co. Inc., the finished goods produced at the Buchanan facility were shipped to the Atlanta plant. The Arrow plant employed many of the citizens of Buchanan and Haralson County until it closed in the early 1990s due to increased foreign competition.

In 1948, Cluett, Peabody and Company produced a documentary titled Enterprise to explain their journey of moving into Buchanan. This documentary explores the town’s building of a textile mill and their experience getting the producer of Arrow shirts to move in.


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Resources to Explore

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Temple

Men’s apparel was the major product of this small textile town.


Visit


Places to See

The following properties are not open to the public, but you can view them from the exterior to learn more about the buildings that supported the textile industry here.

  • Sewell Manufacturing Company Plant No. 2, 911 Sewell Street: Temple’s local boosters encouraged Sewell Manufacturing Company to lay claim to the city. While the plant has since been demolished, the water tower, which the town used to attract the company, is still standing.

History


  • Photo of a newspaper clipping state what the citizens of Temple did to get Sewell to setup there
    Newspaper cutout of all done by the residents and city of Temple, Georgia, to draw textile manufacturing to their town. Courtesy Harold Brock Family

The production of men’s apparel was unique to central west Georgia. In 1919, brothers Robert, Roy, and Warren Sewell operated a “jobbing” company in Atlanta, contracting men’s clothing in New York and selling those clothes under their own labels here in Georgia. By 1928, their Sewell Manufacturing Company was headquartered in Bremen, Georgia, and was now manufacturing men’s suits and coats themselves. As the Sewell’s company grew, they expanded operations several times in the west Georgia region, including plant #2 in Temple, Georgia.

West Georgia was already home to a variety of textile industries, but men’s apparel brought new success and jobs to several small cities in the countryside, including Temple. The city of Temple, along with local boosters, made great efforts to attract Sewell Manufacturing Company to build a new plant in the city. As seen in one of the photographs above, the city spent $40,000 to create a new water system. In addition to the city’s contribution, a Temple resident donated 8.5 acres of land and the Temple Improvement Club donated more than $8,000 to pave the street and parking lot designated for a possible Sewell plant.

The improvements made in the city paid off and Sewell Manufacturing plant #2 opened its doors on December 7, 1953. This plant, or “shop,” manufactured men’s pants that would be paired with suit coats made at the Bremen facility. Unlike some older hosiery mills operating in nearby Carrollton at the time, Sewell plant #2 was equipped with air conditioning. During the 1950s, it employed 250 people and produced 2,000 pairs of pants per week. Sewell’s Temple location was demolished in the mid-2000s, but the impact of the company lives on through the memory of many area residents.


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Tallapoosa

Come see an old mining town that struck gold in the textile industry due to its easy access to the nearby river and railroad.

An early gold mining town in Haralson County, Tallapoosa’s easy access to the Tallapoosa River and Georgia Pacific Railway made it an ideal place for cotton manufacturing. Due to the low cost of shipping and building in the city and the presence of a ready workforce Tallapoosa became the site of a series of industrial enterprises. The first successful cotton manufacturing company, Tallapossa Mills, brought new commerce and jobs to the city.

The Jackson brothers, owners of Tallapoosa Mills, sold their majority stock holdings in the company to the William Whitman Company, after World War I, but the organization remained mostly unchanged. At the beginning of the Great Depression, C. E. Pearce continued to serve as manager of the cotton mill, and A. V. Howe, one of the original organizers and officers, served as president. After operating part-time during the Depression, the mill closed in 1939 due to economic decline.

The northeastern-based American Thread Company (ATCO) purchased Tallapoosa Mills in 1943 to make combed cotton yarn and reopening the mill on January 28, 1944. World War II ended in 1945 and ATCO expanded the Tallapoosa plant in February 1947. The three-story extension of 110,000 square feet was built next to the original building, adding 25,000 spindles.Manufacturing volume increased by 140 percent as did the number of employees, rising from 315 to 680. In 1959, ATCO expanded operations once again.

To help promote ATCO brand yarn in the 1940s and 50s, the ATCO franchise published a series of knitting and crocheting pattern books, called “Star Books.” ATCO’s Tallapoosa mill closed in the early 1980s, the last textile manufacturer to close in the city. Venus Threads purchased the mill and reopened it in the early 1990s, and continue to operate it today.


Visit


Things to Do

  • West Georgia Museum, 185 Mann Street: This museum has exhibits on the Tallapoosa area’s history, as well as its natural history.

Places to See

The following properties are not open to the public, but you can view them from the exterior to learn more about the buildings that supported the textile industry here.

  • Mandeville Mills Cotton Gin, 76 East Alabama Street: The Mandeville Mills of Carrollton had a number of side businesses including a cottonseed oil mill and a fertilizer factory. To supply the cotton for their textile operation and the seeds for their oil mill, they set up a network of gins in the surrounding countryside, even up into Haralson County. Their Tallapoosa gin still stands, it was repurposed into an antique mall and local business which have since closed.
  • Tallapoosa Cotton Mills/Atco Mill, 191 West Atlanta Street: This 100-year-old facility is still standing and remains in operation as Venus Threads. This building is an excellent example of both the early- and mid-20th century industrial architecture. The southern facing wall (opposite the water tower and smokestack) is the original facade. It features rows of windows that have been bricked over. The northern facing wall is the expansion added by ATCO and features a more sleek design with no windows, reflecting the fact that the building was air-conditioned. ATCO operated the facility until the late 1980s. It was purchased by Venus Threads, who still run it today. 
  • Tallapoosa Knitting Mill/Kimball Knitting Co., 2276 US-78: This location has since been demolished and unrelated buildings constructed in its place, but you can still see the surrounding area. This small-scale operation was only active in the 1890s and early 1900s.

History


Explore this community’s history via the drop-down sections below!


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Resources to Explore

Click on the following links to learn more about this region.


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Email the Trail at wgtht@westga.edu or visit our Contact Us page for more information.

Bremen

Several textile companies called this community home, giving it the nickname “Clothing Capital of the South”. 

Known as the “Clothing Center of the South”, the Sewell Company moved operations to Bremen from Atlanta in 1928. Their success encouraged several other textile companies to emerge in this town. While production has since moved to Alabama, the Sewell Company is still very much active within the town of Bremen.


Visit


Things to Do

  • “Stitching the Fabric of Community in the West Georgia Region” Exhibit, 126 Hamilton Avenue: This indoor exhibit shares the textile story of the Sewell Family in the central west Georgia region. This space is located in Sewell Mill Events Facility & Community Center, which is open to the public by appointment only. Please contact Sewell Mill at (404) 492-4336 or sewellmillbremen@gmail.com.
  • Bremen Self-Guided Walking Tour, 3 signs at the Bremen Deopt Park at Atlantic Ave and Carrollton St and and 2 signs at Sewell Mill Event Facility on Hamilton Ave.
  • Sewell Factory Store, 115 Atlantic Avenue: Buy a suit or check out the apparel produced by The Sewell Companies on the ground level of the Sewell Companies Building, which is home to their clothing store. Their hours of operation are Monday through Friday 9:00 am – 4:30 pm.

Places to See

The following properties are not open to the public, but you can view them from the exterior to learn more about the buildings that supported the textile industry here.

  • Cluett, Peabody & Co. Building, 203 South Buchanan Street: This location is privately owned and is not open to the public. Drive by the “Arrow Plant” on South Buchanan Street. This building was the location of the Cluett, Peabody & Co. building between the late 1920s and 1991. Before Cluett came along this site was home to the first textiles in Bremen as Bremen Looms and later on as Bremen Mills.
  • The Ray Sewell Company Building, 300 Alabama Avenue: This multi-story brick building on Alabama Avenue served as the headquarters for The Ray Sewell Company from the 1960s through the 1980s. Currently, this location houses the Bremen office of the Georgia Vision Institute.
  • The Sewell Companies Building, 115 Atlantic Avenue: This two-story building was the headquarters and Plant No.1 for Sewell Manufacturing from 1928-2008 and is now the headquarters for The Sewell Companies. Be sure to check out the historic Art Deco sign and clock and look nearby for our interpretive signs nearby!

History


  • Aerial view of Bremen.
    Aerial view of Bremen. Photo courtesy: City of Bremen

In 1928, brothers Robert, Roy, and Warren Sewell moved their growing apparel company from Atlanta to Bremen drawn to the community by the crossing of two railroads, the intersection of two U.S. highways, and a good supply of labor. Other clothing producers, such as New York-based Cluett, Peabody & Co., Inc., also built apparel plants in Bremen during the late 1920s. Both companies expanded operations several times in the coming decades, building plants in nearby Buchanan, Bowdon, Temple, Douglasville, and Rome, Georgia as well as Heflin, Alabama.

The success of the Sewells spawned numerous other clothing manufacturers in Bremen, including the Hubbard Pants Company (1935), Warren Sewell Clothing Company (1945), the Ray Sewell Company (1955), and the Worley-Sewell Company (1963), among others. During the industry’s peak in the 1970s, some 2,500 Bremen area residents, most of whom were women, worked in the city’s apparel plants.

During the 1980s and 1990s, most of the city’s clothing manufacturers closed due to falling profits caused by foreign competition and the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 (NAFTA). Two of the Sewell family businesses remained — Sewell Manufacturing and the Warren Sewell Clothing Company. In 2008, these companies merged as The Sewell Companies and shifted their headquarters to the “Plant Number One” building, which is part of Sewell Manufacturing Company on Pacific Avenue. Today, The Sewell Clothing Companies produces suits and military uniforms in Heflin, Alabama. These men’s suits, slacks, and sports coats can be purchased at the factory store in Bremen.


Charter Trail Members:

Resources to Explore

Click on the following links to learn more about this region.


Back to Community List

Email the Trail at wgtht@westga.edu or visit our Contact Us page for more information.

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