Mills

Mills. . , Mills , The entrepreneurs who lived in this mansion were leaders in initiating and financing the development of the city's most precious asset - the falling water of the Chattahoochee River. This incredible falls represented a potential energy source of 100,000 horsepower and a means of transportation for connecting Columbus with the rest of the continent and Europe., In 1838, Mayor James Calhoun suggested laying out a series of waterpower manufacturing lots along the riverfront. Harnessing this mighty river was neither cheap nor simple. The city lacked the resources to develop a hydropower system and instead turned to private investors. In 1844 and 1845, the city sold 19 waterpower lots between what is now 12th and 14th Streets to John H. Howard, Calhoun's brother-in-law, and Josephus Echols., They were required to build a hydropower system that served every lot. Their dam diverted water to the Georgia side of the river with a power canal extending southward through every lot. Separate flumes then carried water from the canal to each factory where the water fell through a water wheel that turned shafts and pulleys, which drove the mill's machinery. , Caption: This section of a mid-1840's map shows Howard and Echols's dam and raceway, the 19 waterpower lots and the Coweta Falls Factory located just south of today's Frank Martin Pedestrian Bridge. , Muscogee Manufacturing , George Parker Swift, a Massachusetts native, came to Upson County, Georgia as a teenager and followed his family into textile manufacturing. He operated three profitable textile mills there and moved to Columbus in 1864. Three years later, Swift and his in-laws launched the Muscogee Manufacturing Company on the ashes of the Coweta Fall Factory, which was burned by the Union raiders in 1865. This water-powered operation began south of Franklin (currently 14th Street) in 1867, with a second factory added in 1880. The Mott's descendants sold their family home to the company in 1881, and by the 1890's the old mansion had become the mill office.