The Southern Manufacturing Company began textile milling operations in 1908 on the west side of Athens, just northwest the present-day Boulevard neighborhood, and it quickly established itself as one of the largest cotton mills in north Georgia. For this company, as for many textile manufacturers that established themselves in the South after the Civil War, opening a mill also meant building a community. Twenty-five houses filled up as the mill began to open.

As part of their community-building efforts, the Southern Manufacturing Company established the Hiawassee Settlement House in 1911 to provide uplift and entertainment to its workforce. Mrs. J. L. Morris, who was hired to manage Hiawassee, was paid a salary by the mill owners.

According to the Athens Banner, by 1914, the “attractive cottage” had “ample ground for tennis and other out-door sport, with reception room, library, kitchen, and living rooms. Holidays were celebrated at the house “with appropriate decorations and unique programs, that leave behind and tend to obliterate the sordid things of life.” Mrs. Morris, the sole employee of the house, was also responsible for attending to “the sick and the unfortunate,” and for giving lessons “unobtrusively…in household economics and right living.”

In 1916, the Athens Banner highlighted the accomplishments of the Hiawassee Settlement in its first four years. The Settlement reported over 25,000 visits to club meetings, over two thousand visits to the sick, as well as relief given in the form of cash and food.

This article is one of the first instances of “social work” being used to describe professional activities in Athens.

The Hiawassee Settlement was located in a cottage at the corner of Hiawassee and Tibbetts Avenues–directly across from what is now White Tiger Barbecue (on Hiawassee Avenue at Boulevard). White Tiger was once Southern Mill’s grocery; the lot that held the Settlement House is now a church parking lot.