The cotton factory on Williams Street opened for business in 1833 to mill local cotton, to deploy enslaved labor, and to provide, according to The Athenian, “the best materials…at lower rates than can now be obtained at the north.” Established as the Athens Cotton and Wool Mill, it was reorganized as the Athens Manufacturing Company in 1835, and was always known locally as the Athens Factory. Over time, it produced yarns, linseys, checks, Confederate uniforms, and a variety of fabrics marketed to enslavers for use in clothing their human property.

Buckingham described the Athens Factory fabric as a “cloth of coarse qualities for local consumption” (p. 112). Among other applications, factory cloth was intended for used by local enslavers to clothe their human property. In this 1840 “Negro clothing” advertisement, the factory markets cotton osnaburgs and linseys for winter.

For the Confederate Army, the factory wove flannel for soldiers’ underwear, wool jeans for their uniforms, cotton duck for tenting, and more. The Athens Factory made huge profits off of their war efforts, and they were able to issue sizable dividends to their investors of at least 25% every 6 months during the war. Finally, in February 1865 they paid a dividend of an astonishing 250 percent. (For more on this see Michael Gagnon’s (2012) Transition to an Industrial South.) In this 1863 notice, the factory announced that it was so overwhelmed by the volume of dyeing work for the [Confederate] government, that all other work had to be suspended.

Beyond fabric, the Athens Factory produced thread, and during the Civil War, the thread became a form of currency. Michael Gagnon reports on the “feminine riot” that occurred when the factory put thread up for sale ($3 per bunch) and adopted a “first come, first served” policy. 

Because of the instability of Confederate currency, factory thread became a medium of exchange. Once, shortly after it was first put on public sale at the Athens Factory, ‘a feminine riot’ occurred. Hundreds of women had assembled…’So great was that pressure…that many females fainted, and…the scene was occasionally enlivened by rough and tumble fights.’” (Gagnon, 2012, p. 79)

The company also harnessed the North Oconee’s power to produce flour for Athens’ citizens and meal for their livestock. At the end of the Civil War, Bloomfield offered the use of the Athens Manufacturing Company’s corn and flour mill to the community: “flour and meal will be returned free of charge” (The Southern Banner, 1865).

The Athens Manufacturing Company’s flour mill sat right across the North Oconee and below the dam from the Athens Factory on Daniel Easley’s former site. This photo by David Earnest shows the mill after it was abandoned in the early 1900s.

After the Athens Manufacturing Company acquired the Cook and Brother Armory in 1870, it moved its weaving production up the river to the new facility and began producing finer weaves. The company became well known for its “heavy Georgia checks.” The Athens Factory (now also called “the Lower Factory”) shifted its focus to spinning thread.