Brookside Mills was a textile manufacturing company that operated in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The company's Second Creek factory was the city's largest employer in the early 1900s. [1] Brookside Village, a neighborhood in North Knoxville, was originally developed to house many of the factory's workers. [2] The company closed in 1956. [3]
After the Civil War, Knoxville grew to become the third largest wholesaling center in the southeastern United States. In the 1870s and 1880s, wholesale company owners began reinvesting their profits in other industries, helping to build the city's first large-scale textile factories. Knoxville Woolen Mills, the city's first major textile manufacturer, was founded in 1884. [4]
Brookside Mills was organized in November 1885, with $150,000 in initial capital. The following year, the company erected its two-story factory along Second Creek, on what was then the city's northwest periphery. [5] The factory was initially 78 feet (24 m) by 210 feet (64 m), and contained 6,000 spindles and 176 looms. W. R. Tuttle, who had helped establish the Knoxville Iron Company in the late 1860s, was chosen as Brookside's first president. [5]
In 1895, Brookside raised its operating capital to $500,000, and overhauled its Second Creek mill. [5] The factory was extended from 210 feet to 350 feet (110 m), and a new weaving building was built adjacent to the main factory. The number of spindles was increased to 21,000, and the number of looms was increased to 650, quadrupling the mill's output from 3 million yards of fabric per year to 12 million. [5] After Tuttle left in 1898, James Maynard, son of former congressman Horace Maynard, was named president. [5] [6]
By the early 1900s, the textile industry had become Knoxville's largest employer. [1] While Knoxville Woolen Mills had the larger factory, Brookside's 1,200 employees represented the city's largest workforce. [1] The father of movie director Clarence Brown was general manager of the Brookside Mills in the first decade of the 20th century. [7] Photographer Lewis Hine visited Brookside Mills in 1910 as part of his assignment as an investigative photographer documenting the working conditions of child workers for the National Child Labor Committee. Several of his photographs of Brookside's youthful workers survive. [8]
After World War II increasing foreign competition and the high costs of modernization doomed the city's textile factories. After Cherokee Mills and Venus Hosiery closed in 1954, the city offered Brookside $350,000 in tax incentives to keep its factory open. [3] The company cut salaries and gradually reduced its workforce before finally shutting down in 1956. [3]
Weaving operations continued in some form at the Brookside factory until 1969. In 1996 the buildings were demolished. The site remained vacant until recent years when Holston Gases built a facility on the site. [9]
The lot is located at 523 West Baxter Avenue adjacent to the intersection of Baxter Avenue and Interstate 275.
In October 2011, Holston Gases announced their intention to move their Knoxville gas facility to the former Brookside Mills site. [10] The $10 million project is forecast to produce between 20 and 30 new jobs. [10] This business is now in operation.
Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Tennessee, United States, on the Tennessee River. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state's third-most-populous city after Nashville and Memphis. It is the principal city of the Knoxville metropolitan area, which had a population of 879,773 in 2020.
East Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. Geographically and socioculturally distinct, it comprises approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee. East Tennessee consists of 33 counties, 30 located within the Eastern Time Zone and three counties in the Central Time Zone, namely Bledsoe, Cumberland, and Marion. East Tennessee is entirely located within the Appalachian Mountains, although the landforms range from densely forested 6,000-foot (1,800 m) mountains to broad river valleys. The region contains the major cities of Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tennessee's third and fourth largest cities, respectively, and the Tri-Cities, the state's sixth largest population center.
Lawrence Davis Tyson was an American brigadier general, politician, lawyer and textile manufacturer, who operated primarily out of Knoxville, Tennessee during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During World War I, Tyson commanded the 59th Brigade of the 30th Infantry Division, then served as a Democratic United States Senator from Tennessee from 1925 until his death.
Horace Maynard was an American educator, attorney, politician and diplomat active primarily in the second half of the 19th century. Initially elected to the House of Representatives from Tennessee's 2nd Congressional District for the term commencing on March 4, 1857, Maynard, an ardent Union supporter and abolitionist, became one of the few Southern congressmen to maintain his seat in the House during the Civil War. Toward the end of the war, Maynard served as Tennessee's attorney general under Governor Andrew Johnson, and later served as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire under President Ulysses S. Grant and Postmaster General under President Rutherford B. Hayes.
Jacob Montgomery Thornburgh was an American attorney and politician who represented Tennessee's 2nd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1873 to 1879. The son of a prominent state legislator, Thornburgh fought in the Union Army during the Civil War, and served as attorney general of the state's third judicial district after the war. Following his congressional term, he formed a law partnership with several prominent Knoxville attorneys, and engaged in philanthropy.
Holston Mountain is a mountain ridge in Upper East Tennessee and southwest Virginia, in the United States. It is in the Blue Ridge Mountains part of the Appalachian Mountains. Holston Mountain is a very prominent ridge-type mountain in Tennessee's Ridge and Valley Region, about 28 miles (45 km) long, running from southwest to northeast, covering about 268 square miles (690 km2). Its highest summit is Holston High Point, on which a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) aircraft navigational beacon is located, at an elevation of 4,280 feet (1,300 m) above mean sea level. The second and third highest points are Rye Patch Knob, at 4,260 feet (1,300 m) above mean sea level and Rich Knob, at 4,240 above mean sea level respectively. The fourth highest point is Holston High Knob where an old dismantled Cherokee National Forest fire tower marks the elevation at 4,136 feet (1,261 m) above mean sea level.
Statesview, or States View, is a historic house located on South Peters Road off Kingston Pike in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Built in 1805 by Knoxville architect Thomas Hope and rebuilt in 1823 following a fire, Statesview was originally the home of surveyor Charles McClung. Following McClung's death, newspaper publisher Frederick Heiskell purchased the house and estate, which he renamed "Fruit Hill." The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its architecture and political significance.
William Graham Swan was an American attorney and politician active primarily in East Tennessee during the mid-19th century. Swan served in the Confederate States Congress during the American Civil War, and served one term as mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee, from 1855 until late 1856. He also helped establish the town of East Knoxville, and served as its first mayor in the late 1850s. In 1854, Swan and his brother-in-law, Joseph Mabry, donated the initial land for the formation of Market Square in downtown Knoxville.
Chilhowee was a prehistoric and historic Native American site in present-day Blount and Monroe counties in Tennessee, in what were the Southeastern Woodlands. Although now submerged by the Chilhowee Lake impoundment of the Little Tennessee River, the Chilhowee site was home to a substantial 18th-century Overhill Cherokee town. It may have been the site of the older Creek village "Chalahume" visited by Spanish explorer Juan Pardo in 1567. The Cherokee later pushed the Muscogee Creek out of this area.
The Southern Terminal is a former railway complex located at 306 West Depot Avenue in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. The complex, which includes a passenger terminal and express depot adjacent to a large railyard, was built in 1903 by the Southern Railway. Both the terminal and depot were designed by noted train station architect Frank Pierce Milburn (1868–1926). In 1985, the terminal complex, along with several dozen warehouses and storefronts in the adjacent Old City and vicinity, were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Southern Terminal and Warehouse Historic District.
Tennessee marble is a type of crystalline limestone found only in East Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Long esteemed by architects and builders for its pinkish-gray color and the ease with which it is polished, the stone has been used in the construction of numerous notable buildings and monuments throughout the United States and Canada, including the National Gallery of Art, National Air and Space Museum, and United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., the Minnesota State Capitol, Grand Central Terminal in New York, and Union Station in Toronto. Tennessee marble achieved such popularity in the late-19th century that Knoxville, the stone's primary finishing and distribution center, became known as "The Marble City."
Lonsdale is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, located northwest of the city's downtown area. Established in the late-19th century as a land development project, Lonsdale incorporated as a separate city in 1907, and was annexed by Knoxville in 1917. After a period of decline in the latter half of the 20th century, Lonsdale has recently undergone several major revitalization efforts.
Charles McClung McGhee was an American industrialist and financier, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee. As director of the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railway (ETV&G), McGhee was responsible for much of the railroad construction that took place in East Tennessee in the 1870s and 1880s. His position with the railroad also gave him access to the northern capital markets, which he used to help finance dozens of companies in and around Knoxville. In 1885, he established the Lawson McGhee Library, which was the basis of Knox County's public library system.
The Fidelity Building is an office building in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Initially constructed in 1871 for the wholesale firm Cowan, McClung and Company, the building underwent an exterior renovation and was converted to Fidelity-Bankers Trust Company in 1929 and has since been renovated for use as office space. In 1984, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its architecture and its role in Knoxville's late-nineteenth century wholesaling industry.
The Holston is a condominium high-rise located at 531 South Gay Street in Knoxville, Tennessee. Completed in 1913 as the headquarters for the Holston National Bank, the 14-story building was the tallest in Knoxville until the construction in the late 1920s of the Andrew Johnson Hotel, located a few blocks away. The Holston was designed by architect John Kevan Peebles and today represents the city's only Neoclassical Revival-style high rise. In 1979, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its architecture and its prominent position in the Knoxville skyline.
William Rule was an American newspaper editor and politician, best known as the founder of The Knoxville Journal, which was published in Knoxville, Tennessee, from 1870 until 1991. A protégé of vitriolic newspaper editor William G. "Parson" Brownlow, Rule established the Journal as a successor to Brownlow's Knoxville Whig.
The Knoxville Iron Company was an iron production and coal mining company that operated primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, and its vicinity, in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The company was Knoxville's first major post-Civil War manufacturing firm, and played a key role in bringing heavy industry and railroad facilities to the city. The company was also the first to conduct major coal mining operations in the lucrative coalfields of western Anderson County, and helped establish one of Knoxville's first residential neighborhoods, Mechanicsville, in the late 1860s.
The East Tennessee bridge burnings were a series of guerrilla operations carried out during the American Civil War by Southern Unionists in Confederate-held East Tennessee in 1861. The operations, planned by Carter County minister William B. Carter and authorized by President Abraham Lincoln, called for the destruction of nine strategic railroad bridges, followed by an invasion of the area by Union Army forces then in southeastern Kentucky. The conspirators managed to destroy five of the nine targeted bridges, but the Union Army failed to move, and would not invade East Tennessee until 1863, nearly two years after the incident.
Edward Jackson Sanford was an American manufacturing tycoon and financier, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the late 19th century. As president or vice president of two banks and more than a half-dozen companies, Sanford helped finance Knoxville's post-Civil War industrial boom and was involved in nearly every major industry operating in the city during this period. Companies he led during his career included Sanford, Chamberlain and Albers, Mechanics' National Bank, Knoxville Woolen Mills, and the Coal Creek Coal Mining and Manufacturing Company.
The History of Knoxville, Tennessee, began with the establishment of James White's Fort on the Trans-Appalachian frontier in 1786. The fort was chosen as the capital of the Southwest Territory in 1790, and the city, named for Secretary of War Henry Knox, was platted the following year. Knoxville became the first capital of the State of Tennessee in 1796, and grew steadily during the early 19th century as a way station for westward-bound migrants and as a commercial center for nearby mountain communities. The arrival of the railroad in the 1850s led to a boom in the city's population and commercial activity.
