Brandon Mill

Brandon Mill. . By June of 1900, J. Irving Westervelt’s (1862-1939) dream of a new 5 story, 10,000 spindle, 400 loom cotton mill was under construction. Lockwood, Greene, and Company designed the mill. Built by local engineer Jacob W. Cagle (1832-1910), construction was completed in January 1901. Originally named Quintin, it was charged to Brandon, honoring Capt. Ellison Adger Smyth’s (1847-1945) family and a textile hamlet near Belfast, Ireland. The first cotton cloth was produced on February 8, 1901. By the end of 1901, the mill had produced 4,257,696 yards of cloth. Within five years, the mill expanded from 16,000 to 86,000 spindles, from 150 to 420 employees, and the mill village from 66 to 420 homes. Brandon stock reached over $200 a share by the end of 1908. In 1913, Augustus Wardlaw Smith (1862-1934) of Spartanburg became its second president. By 1918, the company had built a baseball park, school, two churches, nursery, and community house with a dining room, library, showers, and nurse’s station. Later, a bowling alley was added. The most famous of Brandon’s mill baseball players was Joseph Jefferson Wofford “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (1888-1951) who became one of professional baseball’s greatest hitters. In order to keep the mill open through the 1930s, Smith cut hours and pay rather than eliminate jobs – a strategy that produced substantial loyalty to the mill during the 1934 “Flying Squadron” textile strike. During World War II, Brandon Mill prospered with government orders for duck cloth, medical gauze, and uniform twill fabric. In December 1946, Abney Mills bought the assets of Brandon Corporation, and began selling the mill village houses. Brandon Mill reduced its workforce in 1969 and the mill closed in 1977. The mill complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.