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THE MILL WHISTLE
Vol. 37
Edai, N. C., Monday, October 23, 1978
No. 7
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Mebane’s first mill, the Nantucket Mill, as it looked in 1912.
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Fieldcrest History
Nears Completion
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Benjamin Franklin Mebane
.. .A Man With An Idea...
“Fieldcrest in 1893 was just a
section of land and one man’s
idea...’’
So begins “Fieldcrest: Promise
and Pride; Challenge and
Achievement,” a short, pictorial
history of Fieldcrest Mils, Inc.
which will soon be distributed to all
employees and retired employees as
a commemorative memento of the
25th anniversary of the formation of
the company.
Although Fieldcrest Mills, Inc.
was formed only 25 years ago, in
1953, its origins actually go back as
far as 1893 when a man named
Benjamin Franklin Mebane bought
600 acres of land in what was then
the Leaksville-Spray-Draper area of
Rockingham County with the idea of
building “a mill a year.”
Mebane actually built six mills,
the first of which was the Nantucket
Mill, built in 1898. In the ensuing
seven years, the > American
Warehouse, Lily Mill, Spray Woolen
Mill, Rhode Island Mill and the
German American Mill all went up
on schedule.
Little could he have forseen that
this group of six textile mills in a
small North Carolina community
would, over the next three-quarters
of a century, become a nationally
known corporation with sales of over
$416 million, more than 13,000
employees, an annual payroll of
$125,716,000, manufacturing opera
tions in five states in the U. S. and
another under way in Europe.
The 64-page history chronicles this
development from 1893 to the
present, tracing the growth of the
company as well as the personalities
and events affecting that growth.
Much of the story is told via
historical photographs obtained
(Continued On Page I’wo)