This photo shows the residence of Anderson Cotton Mill supervisor Lee Talmadge Embler. It was taken on January 17, 2015 – two days before the house burned to the ground.
South Carolina’s Upstate made an ideal location for textile mills in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The area’s proximity to water power (via rivers and falls), railroads, and prolific cotton crops meant that multiple mills sometimes developed within one town. In Anderson, the Anderson Cotton Mill was one of a several textile mills established. Along with neighboring Equinox Mill and Appleton Mill, a prosperous community developed.
Abney Mills, a company founded by Greenwood native John Pope Abney, bought many textile mills throughout the Southeast during the twentieth century, including Anderson Cotton Mill. As a result, several such mills were also called Abney Mill. Anderson Cotton Mill – or Abney Mill – closed in 1991, leaving a void familiar to many South Carolina communities that had depended on their mills for prosperity.
Mr. Embler, who was born in 1914, remained in the home until his death in 2001. In 2003 a developer from Columbia bought the Embler home, which looked out from atop a prominent hill to oversee the mill village, with plans to rent it. The home had sat vacant prior to the fire.
We are grateful to William H. Myers, III for capturing this stately home before it was lost to fire.
Tal Embler was my uncle. He had to quit school after the sixth grade to go to work in the mill. He was proficient in every job in the mill. And I never met anybody Who didn’t love him.
What a wonderful remembrance! I know he’d be proud to read this! Thank you for sharing it.
I remember when I was only three years old being in this home, why I do not know. I was in hopes to find out when I moved back to Anderson last year but it was already gone. Today I met a man who gave me the name of the person who lived there, but I still do not know the reason I was at this home back in 1963.
I love to see the old pictures of Anderson in South Carolina. I have some old pictures of the Abney baseball team years ago and old pictures of the employees of Anderson Mill. I would like to post them online or send a copy or give a copy to be shown on this web site. I have a letter from a owner of a mill Mr. Orr of Orr mills in 1900 which is signed by him. A lot of people that worked at the mills made Anderson of what Anderson is today.
Hi, Steve. Thank you for your comment. If you would like to share photos with us, please send them here: https://www.sciway.net/forms/pictures.html. Thank you so much!
I remember a Mr. Manly living in this house. Also Mr. Strickland, Mr. M.H. Seigler, and then Talmadge Embler.