Mills Mill

Mills Mill. . Under the entrepreneurial leadership of Otis Prentiss Mills and his son-in-law Walter Moore, the Mills Manufacturing Company was chartered in July, 1896. Utilizing part of the land he had purchased during the 1870s, that ran from Augusta Street south beyond Brushy Creek, and bounded by present-day Otis Street and Mill Avenue, O.P. Mills opened his 5,000 spindle mill and village in the spring of 1897. 200 people came to live in the village and work in the Romanesque style mill. 1902 saw the construction of a company store / YMCA / auditorium / gym. In 1903, over 1,000 people lived in 120 houses. 450 employees operated 27,000 spindles producing fine twills, cotton sheeting, and satins. By 1907, a small school was built with two paid teachers for 70 students under twelve. A “Union” church for Baptists and Methodist congregations was built for the rotating Sunday services. 1920’s villages enjoyed a large baseball park, tennis courts, a playground, croquet grounds, and “The Most Progressive Grammar School” in the state. In 1933 Emmanuel Baptist Church was built on Deering Street next to the Southern Railway spur. Methodists continued to meet at the Union church. In 1918 Alan Graham, former president of Vardry Mill, bought the mill and sold it in 1920 to the Reeves Brothers Company of Spartanburg who operated the mill until its closing., With the founding and great growth of Tremont Avenue Church of God in 1919, the Southern Franklin Processing Company…Packaged Yarn Dyers in 1922, and Franklin Baptist Church in 1927, the village, housing 1,600 people living in 215 houses, expanded west to Green Avenue and the Southern Railway. However, by 1978, the mill, employing only 136 people closed. Today it houses The Lofts at Mills.