The crumbling bricks scattered along the trail are a clue. So is the remnant of a wall, rising up two stories in the woods above Vickery Creek.
Buried in the underbrush of a Roswell park, underneath 50-year-old trees and a jungle of wild vines, are the remnants of a three-story brick building as historic as any antebellum home in town.
The city's origins as a mill town soon will be uncovered. By June, a contractor is expected to begin clearing brush and debris from the ruins of the Roswell Manufacturing Co. mill.
The city recently approved a $330,000 contract to make the ruins more stable, and accessible to the public.
Michael Hitt, a Roswell historian, is pleased. "The city owes its existence to this," he said. "If it wasn't for this industry, the town wouldn't be here."
The ruins that will be protected date to 1853, when the Roswell mill company expanded its operations to a second site on Vickery Creek, slightly east of its original mill. Within a few years, looms in the second mill produced 2,500 pounds of yarn daily.
During the Civil War, the two mills supplied yarn and cotton cloth for the Confederates, making the Roswell industry a target. The mills were burned in July 1864 by federal troops advancing on Atlanta.
After the war, the company reopened the second mill building, Hitt said. Production at the site continued until 1926, when a fire sparked by lightning destroyed the mill. The company left the remains and moved its business to another site.
Today, what's left of the second mill is obscured by trees and plants. Remnants from the final fire are visible, including a scorched utility pole. More history has been carried off over the years, Hitt said.
The only machinery that remains is the stuff too heavy to lift — including the massive turbine that powered the mill and an extensive iron flume, installed in 1888, that carried water from a dam on Vickery Creek to the turbine.
The rusting remains are visible only to people who have the stamina to make it up and down a rickety set of wooden stairs. The city plans to install boardwalks that will make the entire area accessible, including for people with disabilities, said Jeff Pruitt, a Roswell Parks administrator.
"What we're trying to do is get people safely down there," he said. The improved access should include a walkway past the still-standing, two-story machine shop building, which was built in 1854 to serve all the mills.
Overseeing the project is the city's consultant on history, the Jaeger Co. of Athens.
Scott Douglas, project manager, said the first phase will include removing the vines, trees and other undergrowth from the visible ruins. An archaeologist will be on site during the work.
The project is expected to take four to six months once it begins.
The effort should reveal a historic site that many people are unaware of, said Roswell Mayor Jere Wood. Eventually, the city plans to laminate old photographs of the mill buildings and display them on the site.
"When I show people around Roswell, it's one of the places I take people to," Wood said. "It's integral to our history. Most folks in Roswell don't know what's down there."
Labels: Historic Mill, Roswell, roswell park
# posted by
Brian Vanderhoff @ 12:03 PM
