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The wrecked shell of this once-imposing yarn plant stands at 401 South Main Street in the small town of Clover in York County. It was one of the last textile mills in South Carolina to fall, following a long line of closures throughout the second half of the twentieth century as competition from foreign countries like China and India crippled an industry that once dominated South Carolina’s Upstate. Called Southern Industries of Clover, its doors closed in 2007.
Carol Gant of Huntersville, NC, 2007 © Do Not Use Without Written Consent
Johnna Hansen of Summerville, 2017 © Do Not Use Without Written Consent
Johnna Hansen of Summerville, 2017 © Do Not Use Without Written Consent
Johnna Hansen of Summerville, 2017 © Do Not Use Without Written Consent
Johnna Hansen of Summerville, 2017 © Do Not Use Without Written Consent
This is the site of the old American Thread Mill. While it was unofficially closed in 2007, Southern Industries acquired this parcel sometime prior to that, and the company has in fact been out of business since sometime in the early 1980s.
At the height of its business, which boomed in the 1950s and 1960s, it was the largest employer in town. My grandmother, all of her sisters, and their mother before them all worked here at different times.
It was kind of the grounding block of town. If someone you knew, knew a relative, they probably worked here or knows someone who did. The property has sat undeveloped for so long because no one knows what to do with it, and it has been sadly reduced to a decrepit relic. I’ve watched the building slowly deteriorate and become fettered with overgrowth since I was a kid in the late 1980s.
As I visit home today to visit family, it is kind of depressing to look at. It is a monument in and of itself, and I hold hope that whatever lies on this land next will pay proper tribute to what was once the biggest (and one of the only) major employers in Clover.
Very cool. I pass it on the way to church every Sunday and have always wondered what it was.