Background Photo: Magnet Mills

You Can Buy Bricks...The Hosiery Is Long Gone

The front of the old decaying mill may be seen from John Seivers Blvd. in Clinton, Tennessee.  This view is the back and once busy with mill workers. Access has been partially blocked since this photo was shot.

I've read stories of how the families would be laid off work, pack up and move to another state, another town, another textile mill. They'd breathe the same dust, work the same machines and again the job would end. Pack up again, move back where they had been because work had come back to the mill...that was the cycle.

This textile mill made hosiery, I'd call it socks. It churned and spun and paid its help from 1906 for some 40 more years of layoffs, rehires. During that time the unions came. Some times got better I suppose. Ultimately it was a stubborn union on one side, unmoving management on the other and a strike too long. The factory simply closed. After 1967 nothing spun or churned and nothing was loaded on trucks for shipping. The families all went somewhere.

Shot at 18mm. The wide angle puts all in acceptable focus from the gate post 5 feet away to infinity.