Alpha Cotton Mill
(ca. 1889)
One of Charlotte’s earliest cotton mills, the Alpha Mill has evolved from manufacturing to housing during its 100+ year existence.
206, 311, 319, & 325 Alpha Mill Lane and910 &920 Spindle Street, Charlotte, NC 28206
The Alpha Mills Company was one of three cotton mills – including the Ada and Victor mills – organized between 1888 and 1889, all built by the D. A. Tompkins Company. Their construction signaled a rapid increase in Charlotte's cotton-based industrial growth, following the 1881 launch of the city’s first mill, the Charlotte Cotton Mills. Lured by that early success, entrepreneur Daniel Augustus Tompkins (1852-1914) moved to Charlotte in 1883. He established the D. A. Tompkins Co. with R. M. Miller, Sr. in 1884 to build and supply the machinery for cotton mills in the region. The company constructed more than 100 cotton mills and 200 cotton oil plants across the Piedmont over a thirty-year period.
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The Alpha Mills was first organized in January 1888, using a novel stock subscription structure that allowed the public to buy shares on a weekly installment plan, perhaps the first mill in the region to do so. The company’s first president – Fayette County, Alabama, native E. K. P. Osborne (1845-1894) – also served on the Charlotte Board of Aldermen and in the North Carolina state legislature as a Mecklenburg delegate. The mill – built at the corner of East Twelfth and A Streets – initially consisted of a one-story brick building with basement (where the carding, spinning, reeling, and warping operations took place), a cotton warehouse, and a waste house, with several nearby wood frame one-story houses for the workers.
The Alpha Mill first manufactured warps and yarns 20s to 30s, a type of unfinished or “gray” cotton goods. But in 1901, after the company was bought out and renamed Orient Manufacturing Company, the operation was refitted to become a weaving mill for the production of fine finished goods such as madras cloth. The mill’s production capacity was greatly expanded by the addition of a two-story brick building featuring a corner tower characteristic of many New England mills. The construction and refitting cost an estimated $250,000, equipping the revamped mill with 20,000 spindles and 500 looms. However, Orient Manufacturing ceased operations after only three years. The mill was purchased by the Calvine Manufacturing Company, headed by Baltimore native Edward Arthur Smith (1862-1933), once a partner with D. A. Tompkins in the Charlotte Supply Company, a supplier of textile mill machinery and parts. After selling that company, Smith began purchasing mills. By 1907, in addition to the former Alpha Mill, he was president of the Calvine, Chadwick, Dover, Hoskins, and Louise mills in the Charlotte area, and later built other North Carolina mills in Rhodhiss and Kings Mountain. In 1908, Smith began to consolidate his interests by organizing the Chadwick-Hoskins Company.
With some additions and changes, the former Alpha Mill (by then renamed Chadwick-Hoskins Mill No. 3) operated until 1946 when the Chadwick-Hoskins Company merged with Textron-Southern. The mill changed hands several times thereafter but continued to operate as a cotton mill until 1955, when Consolidated Engravers Corporation acquired the property for its business of engraving patterns for the printing of textiles, floor coverings, and similar materials. The mill has since been repurposed for multifamily housing.