page_title: Avondale Mills
section_title: Later years
hierarchical_section_title: Avondale Mills / Later years
caption_attribution_description: English: A closeup of the accident scene in the en:Graniteville train disaster, January 6 2005.
context_page_description: The Avondale Mills were a system of textile mills located predominantly in Alabama, but also in Georgia and South Carolina, with headquarters in Birmingham, and later in Sylacauga, Alabama. The Birmingham neighborhood of Avondale was chosen to be the site of the first mill, hence the naming of the company. Founded in 1897, the mills employed thousands of Alabamians throughout its 109-year history until they closed in 2006. Avondale Mills was founded in 1897 by a consortium of investors including the Trainer family of Chester, Pennsylvania, the future governor of Alabama, Braxton Bragg Comer, and a group of Birmingham civic leaders including Frederick Mitchell Jackson Sr.
  The mills refined the plentiful cotton from Alabama fields and, at its peak, devoured 20% of the entire state of Alabama's cotton production. The owners and operators of Avondale Mills were noted not only for progressive stances with regards to the overall well being of their workers, but also for conditions of child labor that, while common at the time, are today considered abusive.
context_section_description: Avondale Mills continued throughout much of the 20th century on a path of success. In the early 1980s, the company realized a record $300 million in sales. The company endured turbulent times shortly thereafter, however, and lost $14 million as sales declined 20%. Over the course of 5 years, 4 CEO's came and went until the company was sold to Walton Monroe Mills, Inc. in 1986 for $165 million.
  Following its sale to Walton Monroe Mills, Avondale Mills and Walton Monroe operated as separate entities until 1993 when the two merged to become Avondale Incorporated. In 1996, Avondale Inc. purchased the Graniteville Company, a textile manufacturer out of Graniteville, South Carolina.
  On January 6, 2005, a serious train derailment at the Graniteville facility caused a massive chemical spill resulting in the deaths of 6 Avondale employees. A speeding Norfolk Southern train hit a poorly aligned track and crashed into a parked locomotive. The crash sent 16 train cars careening into a parking lot next to one of Avondale's data processing centers at the facility. One of the cars, carrying 90 tons of  chlorine, ruptured and sent a massive cloud of chlorine gas through the facility and the neighboring town. In all, 9 people died as a result of the crash.
  In May 2006, following a settlement agreement with Norfolk Southern Railroad, Avondale Mills' CEO, Robert Williams Sr., announced that Avondale Mills would formally close all of its operations. Over 4,000 people in 4 states found themselves unemployed as a result.
caption: Graniteville, SC disaster scene.
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