James Sanders started his conglomerate of cotton mills in the midst of difficult times for the textile industry. There was a nation-wide epidemic of mill closings in 1910 which included five Mississippi mills: one each at Batesville and Port Gibson, two at Columbus, and the mammoth Mississippi Mills at Wesson. It was a disastrous year, and while the state would later build three new cotton mills, the number of mills in Mississippi would steadily decline over the next fifty years. The next year, 1911, Sanders purchased the twelve-year-old Kosciusko mill and immediately initiated an expansion program. The expanded mill was very successful, enabling Sanders not only to pay for the expansion of that mill but to purchase several others.

Rather than building new cotton mills, Sanders concentrated on the purchase of existing mills; more often than not, mills that were in serious financial trouble or, as in the case of the Magnolia mill, actually closed. With the purchase of the Magnolia mill in 1932, Sanders completed his accumulation of Mississippi cotton mills. By that time, he had a conglomerate, operating under the name of Sanders Industries, and already playing a dominate role in Mississippi cotton manufacturing and would continue to do so until a few months before the death of Robert Sanders in Kosciusko on September 25, 1954.

James Sanders, as a result of his efforts in the textile industry from 1911 to his death in 1937, has been credited with having "laid the foundation for the development of the textile industry in Mississippi in the twentieth century."1 His son Robert shared in that endeavor; he was a very active participant from 1920 to 1953 and deserves credit for playing an important role in laying that foundation. And, at the end as will be seen later, he witnessed the demise of the Sanders conglomerate in 1953 and thus most of the Mississippi cotton textile industry.

Management of the several Sanders mills was coordinated from the corporate office in Jackson, and thus the operation of the various mills and the condition of their villages were very similar. The pay scale, workload, village housing, and living conditions varied little from one mill to the next. Most Sanders workers were aware of the various mills at Kosciusko, Magnolia, Meridian, Natchez, Starkville, West Point, Winona, and Yazoo City as many often moved from one mill (especially if closed or destroyed by fire) to another and, in the process, expected to find employment and old acquaintances at the new mill.2 In my youth, I personally experienced several relocations of this type as my family moved during the depression and early war years from Tupelo to Winona, to Magnolia, to Kosciusko, to Meridian, and then back to Magnolia. And always, old friends and acuaintances were found at the new mill village to make the relocation easier. In our review of the Sanders mills, we will start with Sanders's first mill acquisition.

Kosciusko Cotton Mill

Kosciusko, a small town in central Mississippi, entered the twentieth century looking toward the future. On August 26, 1899, the small town, later known locally as the Beehive of the Hills, organized and approved a capital investment of $167,000 for the construction of its first large industry. It was the town’s first major move toward industralization. Two years later in August 1901, the Kosciusko Cotton Mill was completed and began operations with C. L. Anderson, president; W. B. Potts, vice-president; and Walter Burgress, secretary; A. E. Kelly, W. L. Anderson, N. O. Thompson, Walter Burgress, C. C. Kelly, John Fletcher, W. B. Potts, J. A. Gilliland, and F. Z. Jackson, board of directors.3

The mill was initially powered by a single steam engine and employed approximately one hundred workers to operate 5,000 spindles. The machinery, including spinning frames, came from a mill at Charlotte, North Carolina, which was purchased in tact from the owner, S. W. Cranner, and moved to Kosciusko. The mill was an instant success, and in 1907, it added a second steam engine, installed 320 looms, increased the number of spindles to 12,600, and workers to some one hundred and seventy-five in the production of white goods.4

In 1911, as the state's textile industry fell on hard times, James Sanders entered the cotton manufacturing business. He purchased the Kosciusko mill and immediately initiated still another expansion program; and under his program, the number of workers more than doubled to some three hundred and fifty, spindles increased to 30,572, and looms to 1,131. The production changed from white goods only to a variety of fabrics, including chambry, gingham, bed ticking, and pillow ticking.5 He effectively saved the mill and small town.

The Kosciusko mill, renamed Aponaug Manufacturing Company, continued to be a booming success; it enabled Sanders to expand rapidly and acquire mills at Starkville, Natchez, Winona, Yazoo City, and Mobile. Other purchases would follow, but, to reiterate, this was the genesis of the Sanders conglomerate of cotton mills. The mill was to remain Sander's largest mill and Kosciusko's largest industry for the next forty-two years. By the late 1930s, it operated day and night, employing some four hundred workers with an estimated payroll of $175,000 annually.

With the wide variety of fabrics, Sears Roebuck & Company soon became its largest customer, and in the mid-thirties, the mill often had up to six months in back orders for Sears. In addition, the mill served customers in most of the major cities in the United States and several international markets.6 With Preston Newell as superintendent, the immense prosperity that began in the late thirties continued through the war years.7

Most of the mill workers lived in an adjoining village, consisting of about eighty-five small frame houses. Being isolated from the town, the village had few amenities such as city water, inside plumbing, paved streets, or sidewalks; except for electricity which became available in the early thirties, other services and utilities such as the telephone, natural gas, and mail delivery did not come until the late forties. Each house, as usual, had sufficient land for a vegetable garden, a pig, a few chickens, and access to a community pasture for milk cows. The mill provided an elementary school through the eight grade, a church, a community playground and three large ponds. John Felder's grocery store, a barber shop, and Bud Felder's small hamburger shop completed the village and assisted in keeping the mill people within the village limits.8

Several mill families lived in Crowley's flats consisting of twenty-two small frame houses near the business section of town and Peeler's flats with about thirty-two similar houses midway between the town and village. Living in either flats had the disadvantage of being a substantial distance from the mill, and most workers in the twenties and thirties had little choice but to walk to and from work. Crowley's was about a mile and a half from the mill and Peeler's less than a mile and, in either case, a considerable distance to walk when added to a ten-hour workday.

Later, as the labor market became more competitive at the beginning of World War II, Sanders provided bus transportation. But living in the flats had some advantages. The houses had a few more amenities than the village houses, but the big advantage was the close proximity of both flats to the town school. Unlike the children in the village, children in the flats attended the town grade school and that, as will be seen later, was a tremendous benefit.

Like most other Mississippi cotton mill towns in the early years of the Twentieth Century, many of the Kosciusko mill villagers felt that most of the town people preferred that they stay out of town, except on payday. And like most other Southern mill towns, social intercourse between town people and mill people was limited. Whatever the reason, it was not unusual. Most historians agree that an attitude of superiority by town people toward cotton mill people was common, and the attitude generally applied, as noted by Jennings Rhyn in Some Southern Mill Workers and Their Villages, to textile workers throughout the nation, North and South.9 In fact, it is interesting to note that textile workers throughout the nation were generally referred to as “hands or operatives” as if they were something less than human.

If these attitudes prevailed at Kosciusko as most villagers believed, ironically the village elementary school may have contributed to or actually promoted them by segregating and isolating village children. Before !940, most Mississippi children, like most American children everywhere, did not attend school beyond the eight grade, and thus the separate schools restricted the opportunities for village and town children to interact and establish relationships with each other. This pattern changed, beginning in the early forties, when more and more Mississippi children began to attend high school and college. Children from the town, the village, and the country came together for education and, in the process, established lasting relationships. The relationships became even closer when, almost simultaneously, the young men began to march off together to World War II and a few years later to the Korean Conflict.10

Children attending the village school experienced classical segregation and discrimination, but the potential damage was offset by teachers quietly promoting the development of self esteem and stressing the importance of preparing for the future. Miss Alva Thomas, principal and strong promoter of the Sanders mill and its school, taught the seventh and eight grades; her two sisters, Anna and Lois, along with Christine Paine taught two grades each and completed the faculty. Each school day started in a way now considered unlawful; the student body assembled in the school's auditorium for the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, a short biblical reading, and a prayer. The big event of the year was the annual play, with eight grade actors playing to a full house of villagers. I attended and completed the eight grade class and have fond memories of the school and Miss Alva. I recall it as a memorable and beneficial experience, highlighted by a leading role in the annual play.

The school with its community playground and three large ponds nearby provided the village with a very active recreation center. The ponds provided water for the mill's five steam engines, and for the villagers, swimming, boating, and fishing. The best fishing, however, was at Fletcher's bridge, about five miles south of the village, where my friend, Joe Mathews, and I would frequently go on a Saturday morning with his father and usually one other adult male in a horse-drawn wagon, camp and fish overnight, and return Sunday afternoon. Other social activities centered around the church and John Felder's Grocery where, across the street and under the shade of two large Oak trees, the men played checkers and dominoes.

For fifty-two years to the month, the Kosciusko mill was the town's largest industry and its economic base. Then in August 1953, Robert Sanders in ill health closed the mill, along with his other three remaining mills at Magnolia, Starkville and West Point, and after his death in 1954, the mill and village houses were sold. Ironically, Sanders suffered a heart attack while attending a conference with local business leaders about the possible reopening of the Aponaug Mill and died a few days later on September 25, 1954.

Rather abruptly, the mill was gone, never to reopen. At the time of this writing, the old brick mill building was still standing and occupied by a small electric lamp company. There were almost no signs of the small village that was once adjacent to the mill--the eighty-five small houses, the church, and the school with its community playground. John Felder's grocery store and a few of the former village houses near it were still surviving.

West Point Cotton Mill

In 1899 West Point, a small town of 3,200 on the Illinois Central Railroad in northeastern Mississippi, organized and approved a capital investment of $107,000 to build a small yarn mill. Two years later the West Point Cotton Mill was completed and began operations with J. M. Hardison, as president; J. A. Crawford, secretary and treasurer; Eugene Cross, superintendent; J. R. French, carding-spinning overseer; and P.M. Coates, engineer.11

The small mill was initially powered by a Corlis steam en¬gine to operate 5,152 spindles in the production of thread only. At the time it was West Point's largest industry, employng seventy workers, mostly women and young girls, to produce fine yarns for weaving plants in the northeastern states--primarily New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Producing thread only, it was a small plant in comparison with Aponaug Mill No. 1 at Kosciusko which produced both thread and a variety of cloth.12

After being virtually destroyed by a severe storm in April 1913, the mill was sold to J. R. French, one of its founding officials, who rebuilt and reorganized under the name Cardinal Spinning Mills. Its name was later changed to Perdue Spinning Company, and finally in the early twenties, James Sanders purchased the mill and reorganized it under the name Aponaug Manufacturing Company, Mill No. 2. He brought in A. C. Sanders from Maine to be superintendent and embarked on a substantial expansion program.

The program tripled the number of employees to two hundred and twenty-five and increased the spindles to 8,056 to produce 70,000 pounds of yarn per week. Rather than selling the yarn to mills in the northeastern states, Sanders shipped most of the yarn to his other mills to be woven into cloth and to his newly acquired chenille plants at Durant, Summit, Kosciusko, and Winona to be used in the making of robes and bedspreads.13

In the late thirties, the mill was a pioneer in the spinning of rayon--a synthetic fiber--and during the World War II years it operated day and night to produce a two-ply No. 2 yarn for use by the military. After operating as a thread mill for almost half of a century, a weaving room with two hundred and fourteen looms was finally added in January 1948, and for the first time, the West Point mill began to manufacture cloth .14

The West Point mill district was isolated from the town, and like the isolated mill districts at Kosciusko, Magnolia, Winona, and Yazoo City, the village and living conditions were very similar--no city water, inside plumbing, paved streets or sidewalks; and except for electricity in the mid-thirties, no other services such as telephone, natural gas, or mail delivery until the late forties.

Robert Sanders closed the mill in August 1953, along with his other mills, and after his death in 1954, the machinery was sold and removed. West Point's oldest and largest industry, the town's primary economic base for more than half a century, was suddenly gone, never to be reopened.

In my research of the mill and village in 1995, I visited West Point and found the mill's brick building in use as a warehouse and several of the small village houses surviving in a community known as the Cotton Mill Village District.15 Beulah Simmons, a secretary at the mill in the late twenties and early thirties, fondly reminisced with me about her experiences at the mill and credited James Sanders for saving “the mill and the town of West Point with his purchase and expansion program. Her thoughts then shifted to the Magnolia mill, where she transferred to in 1932, and she added, “he also saved that mill and town.”16

Starkville Cotton Mill

In 1901 Starkville, a town of 3,000 on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad (M&ORR) in northern Mississippi, organized and authorized a capital investment of $125,000 to build a cotton mill. The Starkville mill, named John M. Stone Cotton Mill in honor of a former governor, began operations with W. W. Scales, as president; S. Tied, vice-president; and W. W. Scales, Jr., secretary-treasury.

The mill, the first large industry in Starkville, was located on the M&O, midway between the town's business district and Mississippi A. & M. College (now Mississippi State University). It was actually the town's second cotton mill, for earlier that year the college, as discussed earlier, had opened a small electrically-powered textile mill with 824 spindles and 25 looms for educational purposes. The John M. Stone Mill was powered by steam, and by 1913, employed seventy-five workers to operated 5,376 spindles and 150 looms in the production of sheeting.17

James Sanders purchased the mill in 1916, renamed it the J. W. Sanders Cotton Mill, and changed the operation to the production of chambray in a variety of colors. By 1929, after an expansion program that increased the number of workers to 350, spindles to 20,000, looms to 470, the mill's annual production of "Starkville Chambray," as it became known, reached one and a half million yards; it was produced in fourteen colors and shipped around the world for the making of dresses and shirts.18

The cotton mill and its village--along with a cottonseed oil mill established in 1900, a cooperative creamery in 1910, and Borden Milk Creamery in 1926--occupied an area that became known as the "Cotton District." In the early 1900s, the district included a few large frame houses built by the college, several small frame houses provided for the mill workers, a church, a wagon shop, a blacksmith shop, a barber shop, a meat market, and a grocery. From 1925 to the early 1940s, Sanders provided a grade school at Mill and Gillespie Streets. In 1929, a Catholic Church was built on Maxwell, between Lummus and Hogan Streets; services were conducted by a priest who traveled from Columbus each weekend and slept on a cot in the church. Beginning in 1933, the Blue Goose Restaurant, a favorite hangout for college students during the 1930s and 1940s, completed the district.19

The Cotton District was a thriving industrial complex--comparable to the industrial complexes at Tupelo and Meridian--and from the beginning, the mill houses intermeshed with those used by the college and the other industries to form a bustling middle class community. By the early thirties, paved streets and sidewalks ran through the community; and most of the houses had electricity, city water, and inside plumbing. Pearl Goff, a native and former worker at several Sanders mills, said that it was an upscale community compared to Sanders mill villages at Winona, Kosciusko, Magnolia, West Point, and Yazoo City.20 I agree with her assessment; I visited the community as a young boy several times in the late thirties and early forties and recall that it was comparable to the industrial complexes at Tupelo and Meridian, and that the three were thriving middle class communities compared to the isolated mill villages at Kosciusko, Magnolia, and Winona.

In 1954, Sanders Industries sold the Starkville mill and village houses; the new owners struggled to keep it open a few more years, and finally in 1962, it was closed. Three years later Mississippi State University purchased the old brick mill building and made it a part of its physical plant; unlike most former Mississippi cotton mill towns, Starkville was obviously appreciative of the role the cotton mill played in its history. In 1975 the mill building was included in the National Registry of Historical places, and today, the Cotton District is alive and a popular area to live especially for the college crowd. The closing of the Starkville mill left the Stonewall Cotton Mill as the state's sole surviving mill.21

Winona Cotton Mill

In 1901 Winona, a small town on the Illinois Central Railroad just east of the Mississippi Delta, was lured by its proximity to the state's famous cotton-growing region and the new tax law to enter the cotton manufacturing business. It organized and authorized a capital investment of $132,000 to build the Winona Cotton Mill. The town's first large industry began operations with J. H. Frazier, president, and G.R. Kelso, secretary. It was powered by steam engines and initially employed one hundred and twenty-five workers to operate 8,736 spindles and 220 looms in the production of unfinished drilling and sheeting.22

James Sanders purchased the mill in 1924, and reorganized it under the name Winona Cotton Mill Products. Unlike the case at his other mills, he did not increase the number of spindles and looms to increase production at the new mill. There was no need to add machinery because the mill, like many mills across the country at the time, was not operating near capacity. Sanders simply increased the number of work hours per week and the number of workers and, in the process, increased the production of cloth from 10,000 yards to 16,500 yards daily--a sixty-five percent increase.23 During the Depression years before 1938, the mill operated two twenty-four hour shifts and employed two hundred and twenty-five workers. The shifts were later changed to ten hours and then finally to eight.

The workers lived in an adjoining village, located about a mile south of the town's small business district, consisting of some seventy-five small frame houses. Like other Sanders villages in small towns, the Winona village had very few amenities except for electricity beginning in the mid-thirties, in fact fewer than most--no city water, no sewage system, no paved streets, and no sidewalks. Like most, it had a Baptist church; but unlike the Sanders villages at Kosciusko, Magnolia, and Starkville, it had no village school. Gordan's and Cross's grocery stores, across the street from each other, and J. W. Herring's Garage completed the village and acted as its social center. Young men played checkers and dominoes or just hung out in front of the establishments (using apple boxes for chairs and tables) and baseball in an adjacent open field. Like Kosciusko, the mill pond was a favorite recreation center for both boys and girls, used for swimming and fishing and boating.24

Several mill families lived in an area midway between the business district and the mill, consisting of two short streets with twenty two-room and three-room unpainted shacks. It had originally been a black community, but during the Depression years white mill families began to live in the community while waiting for village housing to become available. The blacks and whites lived together in harmony, while the white mill families waited anxiously and hopefully for better housing to become available in the village.25 While the black and white children attended separate schools, they came home to play and have good times together. They were not aware of any color barriers.

On January 8, 1940, after surviving the Depression, tragedy struck the town and village when the mill was destroyed by fire. As an eleven year old, I watched the extensive conflagration in amazement as my father and other young men darted in and out of the cloth room, retrieving bolts of cloth and taking them to their homes. The mill was completely destroyed, leaving a subsequent period of unemployment, and most of the cloth salvaged was later used as barter for food and other necessities.

Two years earlier in 1937, the Sanders mill at Yazoo City was destroyed by fire, and many workers, connecting the two events, suspected that the fires were intentionally started. Rumors ran rampant that the mill superintendent, C. D. (Red) Kent, who had also been superintendent at the Yazoo City mill when it burned, was connected with the burnings. They were apparently unfounded because no serious investigation or formal charges of arson were ever initiated. Kent transferred to Meridian, where he became superintendent of the Sanders Meridian Cotton Mill and later (in 1944) made an unsuccessful bid for mayor of that city.26

Sanders announced that the Winona mill would not be rebuilt, and except for the few who returned to tenant farming, displaced workers gathered their belongings and moved on to other mills, primarily to Sanders mills at Magnolia, Meridian, Kosciusko, and West Point. It was the second displacement within two years for several families who had migrated to Winona from Tupelo after its 1937 strike: the Ernest Strickland, Edward Strickland, John Collier, Clark Cook, Clarence Davis, Henry Dickinson, E. D. Fox, Choace Fox, Thomas Jones, Earl Hunsinger, William J. Shaw, and the Sheridan families.27

The Ernest Strickland family was one of several families to relocate to Magnolia, and being a member, I have vivid memories of the move. My nine year old sister, Inez, and I rode with our father on the truck's flatbed with the furniture. Most of the nearly two-hundred-mile trip, over two-lane highways, was at night. Passing through Jackson, my sister and I found an opening in the tarpaulin and stared in wonderment at the glistening lights and snowflakes as a rare Mississippi snow provided a fairyland picture, never to be forgotten by either of us.28

Magnolia Cotton Mill

Magnolia, a small town of 2,000, was the second town to build a cotton mill in the piney woods region of southern Mississippi. In 1903, L. L. Lampton promoted the organization and establishment of the Magnolia Textile Company. The mill, with a capital investment of $200,000, began operations that year with L. L. Lampton, as president; Thad B. Lampton, secretarytreasurer; E. A. Hall, manager; J. J. Govis, carding and spinning overseer; and J. H. Stiefel, weaving overseer.29 It was powered by steam and initially operated 4,000 spindles and 160 looms to produce a variety of fabrics, including stripes, tapestries, and shirtings.

After several successful years, the mill began to experience financial difficulty in 1916, and at the April meeting of that year, the directors decided that it was in the best interest of all parties concerned to sell it. Charles K. Taylor, who had just completed the successful reorganization of a cotton mill at Selma, Alabama, was brought in to reorganize the mill, prepare it for sale, and find a buyer.30

Taylor accomplished his assignment, and in 1918, the Magnolia Textile Company was sold to Loeber Landau for $200,000. Landau, associated with the Orleans Cotton Mills in New Orleans at the time, relocated to Magnolia and assumed the presidency of the mill. One of his first acts was to hire C. K. Taylor to remain as general superintendent and then instructed him "to make every effort to get as many looms as possible changed over to the '4 yard goods' just as quickly as possible."31 Taylor was ideally suited to manage the financially distressed mill. He was an engineer graduate of Mississippi A. & M., taught at its textile department, and, as general superintendent, had turned around a financially distressed mill at Selma, Alabama, and at the time, was making progress with the Magnolia mill.32

The Magnolia mill with Landau, as president, and C. K. Taylor, as general superintendent, was reorganized under the name Magnolia Cotton Mills and became a part of a New Orleans textile company which also included the Orleans Cotton Mills and Moorhead (Mississippi) Cotton Mills. It was very successful from the outset, and according to Taylor, "the mill made enough money to build an additional mill," an apparent reference to the Berthadale mill the Landau brothers later constructed in nearby McComb. Some of the profit, however, was used to augment the Magnolia mill village with the construction of several small frame houses, increasing the number of village houses to one hundred and five. Guy Chadwick and Will Berry participated in building several houses under the expansion program.33

The success of the reorganized Magnolia mill was shortlived. Landau initially had great pride in the mill and village but lost much of it, beginning in the early 1920s, when workers began to talk seriously about unionism. Fearing the threat of unionism, he turned his attention in 1924 to the construction of a new mill, the Berthadale Cotton Mill, in nearby McComb.34 Two years later, the Magnolia mill was closed for the first time, and C. K. Taylor set out to find a buyer. Finally in 1928, it was sold at an auction to Emil Kitzinger, a California textile company, for $125,000.35

The mill was reorganized and resumed operations under the name Roundtree Cotton Mills, and for the second time, Taylor was persuaded to remain as its general superintendent. The reorganized mill suffered financial difficulties from the beginning and was not able to get off the ground; after struggling for several months in an effort to stay alive, it finally closed for the second time in 1930.36 Indeed, the 1920s had been difficult years for the Magnolia mill and its villagers, but, ironically, the Depression years after 1932 would proved to be a booming period in comparison.

C. K. Taylor again came forward to provide valuable assistance; for the third time in fourteen years, he found a buyer for the Magnolia mill. The mill, however, remained idle nearly three years until he, in March 1932, persuaded James Sanders and his son Robert to purchase the mill in a foreclosure sale. It was a bargain. The mill was purchased for $25,405--down considerably from the $125,000 selling price four years earlier--with Taylor receiving a fee of $1,000 for his efforts. Thus, the Sanders saved another Mississippi mill and small town.

Sanders immediately initiated a six-month program to rehabilitate the mill and village houses. New machinery was installed, the number of spindles was increased to 13,596 and the looms to 366.37 After being closed so long, the mill's reopening on September 16, 1932, was a day of celebration for the village and town of Magnolia. The mill and its reopening will be discussed at length in the next chapter.

Meridian Cotton Mills

The City of Meridian, the self-proclaimed Metropolis of the Old Southwest, had a long history of cotton manufacturing; its first mill the Pioneer Cotton Mill was established in 1863 and destroyed by General Sherman in 1864; it was rebuilt in 1867 under the name East Mississippi Cotton Mill and then reorganized again in 1871 by its new owner T. J. Solomon.38

In 1896, the city built still another major mill. The Meridian Cotton Mill, with a capital investment of $200,000, began operations that year with L. Rothenberg, as president; James C. Reid, general manager; M. J. McMorries, treasurer; E. A. French, superintendent; B. O. Grayson, spinning overseer; R. L. Stevens, carding overseer; J. M. Gunter, spooling overseer; J. M. Davis, weaving overseer; and Guy McCleland, master me¬ chanic. It was powered by five boilers and employed 450 workers to operate 11,500 spindles and 400 looms in the production of madras, shirtings, and suitings.39

Sanders purchased the mill in the late twenties. Like Starkville and Tupelo, the mill was located in the midst of an industrial complex based on the growing of cotton: two of the other significant plants in the complex were the Alden Spinning Mill, established in 1909, with 250 workers to operate 5,000 spindles and the Maywebb Hosiery Mill with 150 workers.40

Also like Starkville and Tupelo, workers at the various factories lived together in a thriving middle class community. Unlike the shoddy houses and conditions at Sanders mill villages at Kosciusko, Magnolia, West Point, Winona, and Yazoo City, the Meridian mill workers enjoyed well maintained houses provided with electricity, city water, and inside plumbing. Paved sidewalks and streets ran throughout the industrial community with its several small businesses, several churches, and a nearby public grade school. I lived in the Meridian village in 1944 and remember it as a thriving middle class community comparable to those at Starkville and Tupelo.41 At the time, I was fifteen years of age and vividly recall the great improvement in village housing and living conditions at Meridian when compared with those at Kosciusko, Magnolia, and Winona.

After nearly fifty years in operation, the mill was closed in 1945, never to reopen.

Yazoo City Cotton Mill

Yazoo City, a small town at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta, was the second Mississippi town to build a cotton mill in the cotton fields. In 1905, the town established the Yazoo Yarn Mill and began operations with T. L. Wainwright, as president; W. H. Kline, vice-president and treasurer; and J. L. Eddleman, superintendent. Initially, the mill was powered by steam and employed some eighty-five workers to operate 6,656 spindles in the production of thread only.42

Sanders later purchased the mill and, under the name Yazoo City Cotton Mill Products, increased the spindles to 8,192, the looms to 220, and the workers to some two hundred to produce sheeting. While one of Sanders smallest mills, it was by far the small town's largest industry.43

In 1937, the Yazoo City mill was destroyed by fire, and except for the few who returned to tenant farming, most of the workers moved on to other Sanders mill towns, primarily to West Point, Kosciusko, Magnolia, and Winona. Two years later, as discussed earlier, the mill at Winona was destroyed by fire and many workers, connecting the two events, felt that the fires were intentionally started. But again, no serious investigation or formal charges of arson were ever initiated.44

Natchez Cotton Mills

The Natchez Cotton Mill, originally established in 1874, was reopened in 1902 with a capital investment of $350,000. It began operations with R. F. Learned, as president; G.W. Koontz, G. J. Schwartz, secretary; treasurer; C.F. Faulkner, superintendent; John Anderson, carding overseer; J. E. Pressley, spinning overseer, Daniel Pool, weaving overseer; and A. B. Buford, master mechanic. The seven-boiler mill employed 475 workers to operate 22,438 spindles and 632 looms in the production of drills, sheeting, and shirtings.45

A sister mill, the Rosalie Cotton Mill, opened in 1884 and employed 275 workers to operate 10,000 spindles and 300 looms in the production of drills and sheetings. In the early 1920s, James Sanders acquired the two mills and combined their operations; C.K. Taylor, in his analysis of Mississippi Mills in 1926, reported that the combined mills employed 500 workers to operate 22,722 spindles and 636 looms--one of the state's largest cotton mills. Sanders operated the mills only a few years before closing them at the beginning of the Great Depression in 1934.46

Sanders's Conglomerate

The nine cotton textile mills just discussed, along with four cotton chenille mills engaged in the manufacture of robes and bedspreads at Durant, Kosciusko, Summit, and Winona, made up Sanders Industries. It had indeed grown into a conglomerate of thirteen mills and oddly during the hard times of the twenties and thirties in a poverty striken state.

While four of the Sanders mills--Natchez, Rosalie, Winona and Yazoo City--would not survive the Depression years, the conglomerate was nevertheless positioned to dominate the Mississippi textile industry in the 1930s and 1940s. It had survived the turbulent years of the 1920s and was prepared to face the abysmal Depression, which, for the textile industry, actually began in the early 1920s.48 Initially, it would be aided by the lack of adequate protective labor laws, child labor laws, minimum wage laws, hours of work laws, the absence of effective labor organizations, and a never ending line of workers willing to accept low wages, long hours, and poor housing.

Sanders Industries would also benefit from strong community support. All of the Sanders mills, except the Meridian and Natchez mills, were located in very small towns with an average population of about 2,500 such as Kosciusko, Magnolia, Starkville, West Point, Winona, and Yazoo City. Most of the various small mill towns depended on the mills for an economic base and, for that matter, survival. By controlling the economic base, Sanders Industries, like other Southern mill owners, could benefit from the lack of adequate protective labor laws and effective labor organizations and, in the process, expect the support of the local business and professional communities. The situation, as we shall see, would substantially affect Sanders mill workers during the thirties and forties.

The next three and final chapters will examine working and living conditions at Sanders mills during the depression and war years--the thirties and forties. But first for a better perspective of the role of the Sanders mills, let us pause to briefly look at the major problems confronting the American textile industry in general during those years.

Throughout the 1930s, the American textile industry was confronted with insurmountable problems; it suffered, North and South, for several reasons, including a depressed economy, labor unrest, over-production, and fierce competition. Most of the difficulties were clearly self-imposed by the industry, but the Sanders mills, along with many Southern mills, would compound them. They dealt with the difficulties, partially at least, by paying low wages for long workdays, providing poor housing, and increasing the workload under the stretch-out system which was widely used by many Southern mill owners to lower labor costs.

The starvation wages, long hours, and harsh treatment of employees in the Southern textile industry clashed, head on, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's inaugural in 1933 of a "New Deal," promising that nobody is going to starve in this country and that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. The New Deal labor policies that followed were to be vigorously opposed by Southern mill owners, perhaps by Sanders more than most, especially those designed to set fair wage and hour standards and to eliminate abusive labor practices, including the stretch-out system, in the textile industry.

Like many Southern mill owners, Sanders was inflexible and unyielding in his refusal to bargain with labor representatives regarding wages, hours, workload, or housing conditions.49 More will be said about his opposition to labor and treatment of mill workers later, but suffice it to note here that workers at two Sanders mills--Magnolia and Kosciusko--reacted to the harsh treatment and participated in the 1934 nation-wide strike to organize the cotton textile industry. Tempers flared at the two mills and National Guard troops had to be dispatched to quash the threat of violence. The strike and its impact on Mississippi industry, the textile industry in particular, will be discussed in a later chapter devoted to the nation-wide strike.

Let’s now turn our attention to the working and living conditions at Sanders mills and villages; most of the focus will be on the mill and village at Magnolia. It was one of only four Sanders mills--the other three being those at Kosciusko, Starkville, and West Point to survive the depression years, the nation-wide textile strike of 1934, and the war years before finally closing its doors a few months before the death of Robert Sanders in Kosciusko on September 25, 1954. Our review will start with the reopening of the Magnolia mill on September 16, 1932.