Students Cannelton

The Cannelton Cotton Mill

.

The Cannelton Cotton Mill was first built in 1849. It was built of native sandstone and cost $80,000 when it was built and over $175,000 worth of machinery was placed in it. It sits on the banks of the Ohio River and was built under the direction of New England architect Thomas Tefft. 
Most of the building is five stories, and one of its most impressive features are two 100 ft. twin towers at the front. One of these towers housed a fire escape stairwell and the other was a water storage tower for the fire protection. 

The mill made cloth for both World Wars and was shot at by a Confederate cannon on the Ohio River during the Civil War. It was in operation as a cloth mill until 1954 when it was closed due to many problems including not being profitable and too much lime in the water.
The Mill is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (since 1976) and it has been a National Historical Landmark since 1991. It is now in the process of being restored and it will be used as an apartment building. We have interviewed several people who worked at the mill or who had someone in their family who worked there about the mill and here are what some of the people say:

.

Mr. Michael Rutherford -
"The work itself wasn't that hard, but just being there was rather hard. The people who worked up in the third floor of the main building in the spinning room, they had that moisture on them, but not as much...but they looked like snowmen with all that lint on them...they looked like snowmen coming out of there from all that lint that would catch on them after working nine hours up there. It was noisy too, down in the weave shop and other parts- the weave shop had anywhere from 350-450 looms...have you ever seen a loom weave cloth? They have the big spool of thread that unwinds and comes through a harness...it goes up and down, it changes everytime they have a cross thread come through on a shuttle...there was a warp and a woof in weaving...and it had an arm on each end that through it back that went WHACK WHACK WHACK...and after working there and coming out at quitting time our ears would be ringing. We couldn't hear much for about an hour...so the Cotton Mill was hot and noisy!"

.

Mr. William Bennett-
"When it was built they also built they also built in the area where the bank is now they built buildings all around that square and left an opening in the middle and that was used to bring people in to work and they would have a place to work. So, if you worked in the mill you were allowed to rent one of those apartments. If you didn't work in the mill you could not rent one of those apartments...they were rather cheap, about 50 cents a week and finally got up to around $ 2.00 a week or 10 dollars a month, and so on. And that is where a lot of families lived , well there were around 250 or 260 people working there at the time. Then the mill changed over...Beamus Bag company took over in 1945-46, and they just made cloth bags for horse feed and such,and then they went to plastic material, and that did not work out, so then it folded in 1954. So it sat like it is for those many years."

.

Mrs. Margaret Schank- Mrs. Schank told us about her ancestor, Mary Kindly May, who was a displaced mill worker from the Roswell mill in Roswell, Georgia. She was one of the southern mill workers forced by the northern soldiers to come to work in Cannelton at the cotton mill during the Civil War. She worked here until the war was over and then stayed, marrying and raising her family here. Many other family members of Mrs. Schank worked there too. 

by Jessica and Ashley

Resources: 
brochures from Historic Cannelton, Inc.
Cotton Mill image from postcards at Perry County Museum
other photos by students of Cannelton Media Club
Interviews thanks to Mr. Michael Rutherford, Mr. William Bennett, and Mrs. Margaret Schank