Mill Village of Kannapolis

James William Cannon was one such entrepreneur. After establishing a mill in Concord, NC, Cannon realized that manufactured towels were among his best-selling products. Deciding to exclusively manufacture towels on a massive scale, Cannon established the town of Kannapolis in 1912, with the center of the town housing the massive “Cannon Manufacturing Company” plant or known as the Cannon Mills.

As was custom for large plants, Cannon funded the construction of a mill village to house his employees. Building housing was imperative for attracting workers from the rural fields of the state.[1] The houses, especially along Ridge Avenue, 1st St., 2nd St., and 3rd St., as well as the surrounding blocks are all among the original homes built by Cannon. In line with mill owner D.A. Thompkins’ writings in Cotton Mills: Commercial Features, the houses of Cannon’s mill village are varied in appearance, though in Cannon’s day, the homes all would have been painted the same color, white. Thompkins, and evidently Cannon agreed, believed that mill workers, utilizing the education provided by the mill owners at schools, would form different tastes as they grew in education. Thompkins, therefore, believed that mill villages should respect this by offering a variety of different looking, yet similarly sized homes.[2]

However, unlike Thompkins, who felt that mill workers did not need large yards as they would lack the free time to tend to them, Cannon ensured every home was afforded a spacious yard, far deeper than they were wide to allow more homes to be placed side by side. According to some longtime residents however, mill workers rarely had the time to tend to their yards, leaving dirt and mud the norm for yards.[3]

As you walk down Ridge Avenue to First Street, notice how the homes facing Ridge look much different, and architecturally more complex than the homes deeper in the village. The homes lining Ridge, and Main Street were often the homes of important town officials, or supervisors for the mill itself. This was done to project an image of wealth to travelers as both Ridge and Main Street ran parallel to the railroad track which ran to Charlotte and Raleigh.[4]

Another distinctive feature of the mill village are the large and old trees that offer a green canopy over many of the streets. Cannon, again borrowing from Thompkins work, ensured that large trees were planted with essentially every home that was built. Thompkins believed that efforts had to be taken to lure farm workers away from their customary rural homes, into mill cities to be employed. To do so, the necessities of a mill city had to be blended with the familiarity of rural living, such as planting large trees to offer a green canopy.[5]

At the corner of Ridge Avenue and 1st Street, is the HJ Peeler house, built in 1923 for the superintendent of Kannapolis’ new schools. Its rustic brick exterior is unique among the mill houses that lay within the original mill village boundaries, as it was one of only a few homes not built by Cannon for his employees. With 18 rooms, to house Peeler’s 8 children, this large house was converted into a boarding house for teachers in 1929. Recently restored, the HJ Peeler house is a well-preserved example of Colonial Revival architecture and a rare surviving example of a non-Cannon built home from the early days of Kannapolis.[6] 

[1] Thomas Hudson Cartledge III, "Recollections: Life in South Carolina Mill Villages," Clemson University, 2019. https://librarylink.uncc.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.librarylink.uncc.edu/dissertations-theses/recollections-life-south-carolina-mill-villages/docview/2343285961/se-2?accountid=14605.

[2] D.A. Thompkins, Cotton Mills: Commercial Features, (Charlotte: D.A. Thompkins, 1899), 116.

[3] Helen Arthur-Cornett, Remembering Kannapolis: Tales from Towel City, (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006), 39.

[4] Peter R. Kaplan, The Historic Architecture of Cabarrus County North Carolina, (Charlotte: Jostens, 2004), 187.

[5] Thompkins, Cotton Mills, 117.

[6] Wilson, Karen Cimino. “Historic H.J. Peeler House Opens.” The Independent Tribune, January 28, 2012. https://independenttribune.com/news/historic-h-j-peeler-house-opens/article_76f5ec95-c0f6-55d4-adb8-ce393f82b6f5.html.