The Trainer Family of Chester, PA; Braxton Bragg Comer; The Birmingham Commercial Club
Defunct
July, 2006
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.
The mills were operated solely in Alabama until Donald Comer released control of Avondale Mills to his brother-in-law, Craig Smith, who helped expand the mills into both Georgia and South Carolina. Walton Monroe Mills Inc. purchased Avondale Mills in 1986. In 1995, the owning firm acquired the textile operations of the Graniteville Company. Disaster struck when, on the morning of January 6, 2005, a train accident outside of the Graniteville, South Carolina, mill caused a large chlorine gas leak from a ruptured tank car that killed 9 people on the train and surrounding area. In 2006, as a result of the Graniteville disaster and increased competition from overseas, Avondale formally shuttered its operations.
The AvondaleMills were a system of textile mills located predominantly in Alabama, but also in Georgia and South Carolina, with headquarters in Birmingham...
roughly 2:40 am EST, two Norfolk Southern trains collided near the AvondaleMills plant in Graniteville. Nine people were killed and over 250 people were...
The AvondaleMill was a large gable-front stone structure, three stories in height, and 10 bays long by three wide. It was located on the bank of the...
The AvondaleMill Historic District is a former mill village in Pell City, Alabama. Part of the AvondaleMills, the area is architecturally significant...
modern textile mills, doffing machines have now replaced humans. The Industrial Revolution created growing demand for child labor in the mills and factories...
Winooski, VT, in 1907 Model Mill Settlement, Chadwick Mills, Charlotte, N.C. Published c. 1905–1915 White Oak Cotton Mills, Greensboro, N.C. c. 1914 Aerial...
under Lowe Mills, Inc. in January 1933, with Donald Comer, head of Birmingham's AvondaleMills, as majority stockholder. In 1936, Lowe Mill changed hands...
killed by an early morning chlorine spill. According to AvondaleMills, owners of the Graniteville Mill, lingering chemical corrosion over the following months...
Manufacturing Company in 1902. The company, along with B. B. Comer's AvondaleMills, turned Alex City into one of the textile centers of the South. In 1913...
Avondale FC is an Australian semi-professional association football club, with the men's and women's teams based in Parkville and the junior sides based...
Enterprise mills. The last seven company-owned dwellings were sold in 1969 (HAER, 8). Graniteville Company was purchased in turn by AvondaleMills in 1996...
Avondale University is an Australian private university affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It is a part of the Seventh-day Adventist education...
between Ellicott Mills and Woodstock, Maryland. In 1845, Peter Gorman was responsible for the first macadamized (paved) road in Laurel, Avondale Street next...
States Brewers' Association ads WPA Ralston Purina McCall's magazine AvondaleMills American Tobacco Company Coronet magazine Curtis Publishing Company...
Operatives and Manufactures-- The Eleven Hour Rule-- The Flouring Mills-- Avondale--Arrear of Wages-- Machine Shops-- The Brag Farm-- Value of Land--...
valuable real estate that was lost to arson, including Troy Hill (1990), AvondaleMill (1991), Ammendale Normal Institute (1998), Phelps Log Cabin – moved...
entrance to the mill town of Laurel, Maryland on the other side of the Patuxent River. A bridge served as the community link to the AvondaleMill and main street...
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