Milltown Education

Milltown Education. . Many cotton mills in the south operated schools to promote the literacy and work ethic expected for future mill employees. Whitfield County had three mill schools: Crown Point, Elk (later Boylston Crown), and Atcooga, an acronym for American Thread Company of Georgia. Crown Point School, originally located on north Thornton Avenue was built in 1910 by the Crown Cotton Mill. The Elk School on Bryant Avenue began in 1919 and became Boylston Crown in 1924. Atcooga School on south Dixie Highway began in 1925., In Dalton's mill villages, the village school played a central and positive role in the lives of children who attended them. Mill village schools were located outside the city limits of Dalton, so they were part of the Whitfield County School System. The mills supplemented the county's pay for teachers. In the mill schools, pupils attended school for nine months of the year unlike other county schools that attended for five months of the year. During the era of school consolidation in Whitfield County in the late 1920s to late 1930s, none of the mill village schools merged with other schools., All three mill schools served first through seventh grade and provided kindergartens decades ahead of Georgia's public school systems. However, in the early years of the twentieth century, most mill school students did not continue their educations past the seventh grade. Instead of going to high school, they went to work in the mills to supplement the family income. The 1925 Georgia child labor law required a minimum employment age of 14 1/2 and changed this practice, adding a few years of education., In 1946, the Dalton city limits expanded to include Crown Point and Boylston Crown schools. Crown Point changed locations to Jones Street, became Crown View School in 1952, then Westwood School in 1974. Boylston Crown School closed in 1963, merging with Brookwood Elementary. Atcooga, which remained part of the Whitfield County Schools, closed in 1964., Two mill school buildings still stand and are in use. The old Atcooga School on South Thornton Avenue or Dixie Highway is the central office of the Whitfield County Schools. The old Boylston Crown School, located on Bryant Avenue, now houses City of Refuge, a nonprofit organization., The textile and tufting industry companies and other townspeople strongly supported the school systems over the years building robust educational institutions. Both Dalton and Whitfield County public schools are educating area children well to ready them for post-secondary education and to prepare them for the demands of the local and global economy. In 1963, Dalton Junior College, now Dalton State College, was founded and now offers many Bachelor's degrees to over 5,000 students., Photographs courtesy of Whitfield-Murray Historical Society, Bandy Heritage Center, Carpet and Rug Institute, and Georgia Archives