Posted April 14, 2014

 

OK, pinch me now. Is this happening? Am I really living IN a textile mill?

 

Yes indee-dee-do. Six months ago, if you had told me I’d be running a textile news website, I’d have told you, “uh … probably not.” And if you had told me I’d be running a textile news website from a former textile plant, I’d have checked your vitals. But here I sit – with a view of downtown Greenville, S.C., a smokestack, a water tower and fully stocked ponds from a fourth-floor loft inside the Monaghan Plant – writing this blog.

 

And hearing only a symphonic nighttime chorus of frogs and crickets below.

 

While wondering just how loud this floor was 20 years ago when JPS Textile Group operated an extra-large spinning room here.

 

Not to mention pondering whether or not the CLANG-CLANG-CLANG from the first-floor weave room could be felt from up here.

 

And thinking of the thousands of men and women who plied their trade within these walls to provide for their families and help make textiles one of the greatest industries this country has ever seen.

 

Only five days in, it’s a lot to contemplate. The ambiance. The character. The history.

 

From the open floor plans to the soaring ceilings to the exposed brick walls and pine beams to the stained concrete and wood floors to the arched windows, to the exposed duct work – it’s all pretty cool.

 

Wikipedia tells me this place operated for 101 years (1900-2001) and is now on the National Register of Historic Places. And that former textile behemoth JP Stevens owned and operated the plant for 42 years. And that 35,000 spindles were started up on Day One.

 

What it doesn’t tell me are the stories of the people who called Monaghan their home away from home. Or the close-knit, family atmosphere of this mill village. Or the national pride those employees who weren’t sent off to fight World War II felt as they made twill and gabardine fabrics for uniforms during wartime production.

 

But being something of a textile historian, I can imagine all of this. Hard work, camaraderie and pride were common threads in mill villages throughout the South – something that seems to be lost in today’s chop-chop, cutthroat, coma-inducing world of business. But I digress.

 

You could say this plant’s reopening is a metaphor for the resurgence of U.S. textiles taking place these days. I wouldn’t agree, though, unless looms and spindles were cranked up in here. But I would suggest that because people who don’t know the difference between winding and warping actually choose to live in a century-old former textile plant is a great way to honor the thousands of people who handled opening, combing, drawing, twisting, weaving, sizing, et al., here.

 

Which makes me wish that these walls could talk.