From Industry to Artifact: Lockhart Mills

From Industry to Artifact: Lockhart Mills. . , With construction beginning in 1893, Lockhart Mill was completed in 1894 under the leadership of John C. Carey with the help of investments from Charleston-area entrepreneurs, including Seth Milliken. As president of the mill, Carey expanded the textile mill by 1895 and oversaw the construction of a second mill at Lockhart , Lockhart Mill Number Two. Constructed in 1905 immediately south of what became Lockhart Mill Number One, the second Lockhart Mill contained 40,000 spindles. By 1907, when Carey resigned his position as president, Lockhart Mills employed 750 operatives and boasted 51,000 spindles and 1,604 looms., During construction of Lockhart Mill Number One, a previously abandoned canal was redirected and plugged to travel underneath the new industrial complex. Utilizing waterpower from the canal, Lockhart Mills flourished. By 1915, production increases led to the need for additional waterpower at the mills and the dam was enlarged. In 1920, construction began on the Lockhart Power Company, located south of the mill village. The erection of the power company meant a major extension project for a new canal. Constructed at least in part by The Osgood Co., the canal (or mill race) was extended on the site of the Lockhart Railroad, separating a small southeastern section of town from the remainder of the village. The railroad was not removed at this time, but tracks were raised and placed on the new canal levees. , Following in his grandfather Seth Milliken's footsteps, Roger Milliken became a textile mill magnate during the mid twentieth century. Taking over his family's company Milliken and Co. in 1947, Roger Milliken purchased Lockhart Mills in the 1950s. In 1994, Milliken and Co. announced the closure of Lockhart Mills, and by 2002, razing of the industrial site was complete. The mill's smoke stack stands today as a remnant of the historic mill site. , A Better Way , Earning his fortune as a railroad surveyor after the Civil War, Carey used his prior experience to establish a railroad to the village of Lockhart in 1899. Prior to the railroad, materials arrived via oxcart and mule wagon over unimproved roads , a tedious, expensive, and difficult task. , The Lockhart Local carried passengers and goods as part of the Southern Railway. Around 1950, passenger service was abandoned on the spur, to be followed by complete abandonment and a taking up of the lines by Southern in 1978. Evidence of the Lockhart Local remains only in the foundation of its depot still present in the mill village. The building itself no longer stands. , Bridging the Broad , Replacing the ferry at the Broad River in 1921, a new truss bridge, "a showpiece of the county," was erected by Green and Woodbury at the Chester-Union county line. The expansion of the mill race also required a new pedestrian bridge leading to the mill from the eastern end of Mill Street in the mill village around 1920. In 1949, the truss bridge was replaced by a concrete and steel bridge. The new bridge was named J.V. Askew Memorial Bridge, after a former postmaster of the town. , In 1917, a merger between Monarch Cotton Mills and Lockhart Mills formed Monarch Mills. Though the mill in Lockhart kept its name, employees of this mill and Monarch Cotton Mill in Union were given the Monarch Mills Employee Handbook, which covered rules of the company as well as introduced new operatives to community services and institutions. , To give operatives a more tangible symbol of what their paper checks represented, mill manager Chris Suber gave each worker at Lockhart Mill a silver dollar (see above) in 1952. Most worker's either gave the dollar to their children to spend on Christmas gifts at the company store or kept the dollar as a keepsake that remains in their family today. , [photo captions] , . Lockhart Mill Circa 1890s-1920s , . Hauling Northrop Looms Across Sou. Carolina to Lockhart Mills , Jan. 21st 1896 , . Lockhart Locomotive, 1918 , . J. V. Askew Memorial Bridge Constructed in 1949