Johnston Mill

Born in Iredell County, Johnston attended Davidson College before joining the mercantile firm of the Stough Cornelius Company in Cornelius. He was soon hired to be the superintendent of the Cornelius Mills. He moved to Charlotte in 1891 to become secretary of the Highland Park Manufacturing Company, the prominent textile company cofounded by Daniel Augustus Tompkins, and took over as president of that firm in 1906. Johnston soon began building his own textile empire, starting with the acquisition of the Anchor Mills in Huntersville. By the time of his death in 1941, Johnston headed thirteen mills in North and South Carolina. In 1924, he built a skyscraper, the Johnston Building, on Charlotte’s South Tryon Street to house the corporate headquarters.

The 1914 outbreak of World War I severely impacted the European textile industry. Because of the significant demand for uniforms and bandages and the shortage of materials, the textile plants in the then-neutral United States picked up the demand. A wary U.S. also started to expand its own armed forces, just in case. To meet this demand, local mills worked at capacity and around the clock, and several new mills were built. Johnston decided to build another mill in North Charlotte, likely due to the excellent rail connections and existing spur lines at the next-door Mecklenburg Mill. To get his new mill up and running as quickly as possible, Johnston leased nearly half of the Mecklenburg Mill property for the new site. By mid-1916, the new Johnston Manufacturing Company mill had been completed with 12,000 spindles running at full capacity. Because the two existing mills in North Charlotte (Highland Park #3 and Mecklenburg Mill) had already built up the area with mill houses, stores, and other amenities, Johnston did not need to duplicate those efforts. Johnston’s other companies – Johnston Mills Company and Johnston Spinning Company – were merged into the Johnston Manufacturing Company in 1969.

The Johnston Mill prospered after the war. In 1926, several additions were made to the mill, including an expanded picker room and a new waste house, opener room, and cotton warehouse. In the early 1930s, a two-story addition with a tower was added at the front of the mill for offices. In 1941, Johnston Manufacturing formally purchased the property it occupied as well as the nearby Mercury Mill (formerly the Mecklenburg Mill), primarily to acquire the other company’s mill houses.

Following Johnston’s 1938 retirement as president of Johnston Manufacturing Company, he was succeeded by his son R. Horace Johnston, and in 1951 by his grandson David R. Johnston. The Johnston Mill closed and was sold in 1975 to Chavis Textile Manufacturing of Gastonia and later to Confederate Textile Machinery of Greenville, South Carolina before being renovated and converted into apartments.