Former Mill Building Now Supports Local Businesses and Housing

Built in 3 phases between 1900 and 1915 in Greensboro, North Carolina, the Revolution Cotton Mills is an example of the diversification in the Southern textile industry during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was founded as a joint venture of the Cone and Sternberger families, two prominent Jewish families integral to Greensboro’s development.

The mill was fully operational by September 1900 and included 12,000 spindles, 376 looms, employed 350 people, and had 125 company houses – creating the village of Revolution. A 1910 description of the mill noted that “the company houses its employees in neat, modern houses and has supplied the village of Revolution with schools, free kindergarten, healthcare facilities, playgrounds, summer camps, a YMCA, churches, and every possible convenience.”

Revolution Mills’ particular significance lies in the fact that it was reputed to be the first flannel mill in the South, at a time when flannel was an increasingly popular fabric. By the 1930s, Revolution Cotton Mills had become the largest exclusive flannel mill globally, growing to over 1 million square feet and producing over 50 million yards annually.

In 1947, the Revolution Cotton Mills merged with Proximity Manufacturing Company, a secondary business venture founded by the Cone family, to become the Cone Mills Corporation. For approximately thirty years after the merger, the Revolution plant continued to produce flannel goods.

In the late 1970s, however, with new government standards concerning flammability, the company elected to get out of the flannel business. The plant was then converted to corduroy production, with a large export market, but when this market deteriorated, Cone Mills shut down the Revolution plant for good in February 1982. In 2012, Self-Help Ventures bought the mill and embarked on the first phase of redevelopment for the complex. The main campus was complete in 2019, and the Mill House project represents the final piece of the Revolution Mill development.