Monaghan

Monaghan Mill and village were established in 1900 by cousins Lewis Wardlaw Parker (1865-1916) and Thomas Fleming Parker (1860-1926). The mill and village were named in memory of their grandfather’s native county in Ireland. Located on 325 acres along the Reedy River, the mill was designed by the firm of Lockwood, Greene, and Co. When it opened in 1901, it contained 25,000 spindles. By the end of the decade it had expanded to 60,000 spindles and employed 700 workers, many of whom lived in the surrounding mill village. From the beginning, the Parker’s goal was to make Monaghan a model of enlightened paternalism and self-sufficiency providing water, electricity, schools, and a medical clinic. Parker became nationally known for the employee programs he instituted at Monaghan Mill. Those programs, intended to contribute to the intellectual, spiritual, and physical well being of the community were widely recognized and provided a pattern which was copied throughout the South., In 1904, at a cost of $18,000, Thomas Parker built a Young Men’s Christian Association at Monaghan, the first chartered in a southern mill town. Dr. Lawrence Peter Hollis (1883-1978), director of the Monaghan Y.M.C.A., traveled to Springfield, Massachusetts to learn the new sport of basketball from inventory Dr. James Naismith. On that same trip, he met Lord Robert Baden Powell who had founded the Boy Scouts. Returning home, Dr. Hollis introduced the sport of basketball and the Boy Scouts to Monaghan. “Dr. Pete” also founded the Southern textile Basketball Tournament, hosted annually in Greenville form 1921-1996., After operating for 100 years, Monaghan Mill closed in 2001. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.