Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1905-07-12
GEORGE WALKER PRATT.
"The Man Who Made Peli City Famous.
High Tribute to His Worth.

nent figure in this sketch, is former
resident of Walhalla, and his friends
throughout Oconee will be pleased
to learn of his success in his adopted
home. The Age Herald's CORE
spondcnt, writing from Pell City,
says:
Three years ago this community
was touched into lite, rising Poenix-
like from the ashes of financial dir
aster and taking once more proDi-
nent place in the development, pro-
gress and prosperity of the State. A
man with big brain and big heart
had fixed his attention on Pell City.
He was a South Carolinian with
brains in his head aud touch of
iron in his blood-the son of Con-
neoticut Yankee who had come
South before the war and fought
four years with Lee in Virginia. A
sort of Puritan Cavalier, inheriting
the virtues of both North and South
and the vices of neither, he recog-
nized that the great problem which
in peace, confronted the people for
whom his father had fought in war,
was how to adjust themselves to
their changed industrial condition.
In South Carolina he had been for
fifteen years intimately in touch with
cotton mill men, and he made up his
mind in 1902 that he would build a
cotton mill at Pell City and run it
himself. He went to Boston and
got the money requisite for the en-.
terprise, and before long the Pell
City Manufacturing Company had
erected a cotton mill at Pell City,
whose two buildings cover respec-
lively an area 25Ox72O feet aud
100x343 feet.
This mill is unexcelled by any
other mill of its kind in the Union.
1t employees $50 operatives. Their
wages are the highest paid in the
State of Alabama. Labor condi-
tions at Pell City are excellent. The
relations between employer and en-
ployee are as happy as they possibly
can be. Near the mill is "tbe fac
tory village"-a collection of homes
architectarally attractive and sani-
tarily admirable. They were built
not merely to provide "shelter" for
the employees in the mill, but to fur
nish them with homes in which fami-
lies might rear their children in the
love and fear of the Most High God.
These houses vary in size from three
to eight rooms. The streets and side
walks in "Factory Village" are in
viting. Pretty gardens, with flowers
artistically arranged, remind the
passer-by that the people who live
In the houses are hopeful, happy
and contented. Every house is sup
piled with electric lights and pure
running water free of expense. Bath
room are abundant and all conve-
niences of the modern dwelling are
to be found in the pretty cottages.
In the winter coal is furnished all
the operatives at actual cost; in the
summer ice is provided on the same
basis. The product of the mill-cot-
ton goods, useful for garments-may
be had at cost of production.
Besides these convenienccs the
employers have built a beautiful
school house, with free tuition and
free books, hall for lectures and
entertainments, pretty village park
with pavilion for dancing, bath
house and one of the finest athletic
fields, with grand stand and inclo-
sure, that is to be found il, the South.
They will soon erect library build
ing.
The mill contains $4,000 spindles
and 74O looms and produces $4,000
yards denims a day. The officers of
the company are G. w. Pratt,
president; A. j. Draper, treasurer +;
A. f. Lcdyard, secretary, and James
Il. Pierce, superintendent. Two
years ago these men, led by G. w.
Pratt, formed Pcll City, hamlet of