One of the country’s most extensive collections of textile machinery currently sits in Randolph County warehouses, and it could soon form the basis for North Carolina’s first new state-run history museum in decades.
Last month, Gov. Roy Cooper signed Senate Bill 525, which launches a feasibility study of establishing a museum or historic site in Franklinville “to interpret the state’s textile production and industrial history.” Between now and next May, the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources will review the textile collection and old mill buildings owned by the nonprofit Randolph Heritage Conservancy.
But the bill also could create a competition of sorts for the museum: It also calls for studying the feasibility of a textile museum in Erwin in Harnett County. SB 525 was sponsored by Sen. Jerry Tillman, R-Randolph, at the request of the Franklinville group, but the Erwin provision was added in the House Rules Committee, whose chairman represents the Erwin area.
Franklinville, however, has a head start in creating a museum. After the American Textile History Museum in Massachusetts shut down in 2016, much of its machinery collection was shipped south to the Randolph Heritage Conservancy. Some of it’s now on display at the Revolution Mill in Greensboro, but most of it remains in warehouse storage in Franklinville, a former mill town of about 1,100 people near Asheboro.
“Something had to be done about this collection because it would have been a tremendous loss to the entire country for this collection to go to the scrapyard,” said Mac Whatley, a local historian who leads the Conservancy. “It really is vital to interpreting the work, the employment — the whole history of labor in the textile industry.”
Whatley said the collection belongs in a state museum, as North Carolina doesn’t yet have one for the textile industry. “It’s a major gap in the presentation of North Carolina history,” he said. “To collect the kind of collection that we just received would cost years and millions of dollars.”
It’s unclear exactly where a museum would go. One option is the remaining buildings of the Franklinville Manufacturing Company, which was first established in the 1830s. The mill closed decades ago, and the buildings that haven’t burned down are in disrepair. But it’s surrounded by homes and buildings from the time period that give visitors a feel for life in a small North Carolina mill town. The Conservancy owns the property.
Another option is a warehouse in the nearby Cedar Falls community that the Conservancy is buying to store the collection. Whatley’s vision is to refurbish equipment in a “restoration workshop where people can come see the machinery come back to life.”
“Young people are less patient of looking at pictures and signage” in museums, Whatley said. “They like to explore.” The Franklinville collection fills tens of thousands of square feet with spinning machines, looms and even an old mechanical calculator known as “The Millionaire.”
Erwin doesn’t currently have much of a collection, but leaders there like the idea of a textile museum in what was known as the “denim capital of the world” before the mill closed.
Plans for an Erwin Textile Museum have been discussed since at least the 1990s, when the town got a $25,000 grant in the state budget to pursue the idea. It never fully materialized, but Erwin does have a small history room attached to its library — including some textile artifacts — and the goal is to eventually move it into the old train depot.
Erwin Town Manager Snow Bowden was unaware of SB 525 until a reporter called, but he said a textile museum would be a good fit for the town. The former mill once reportedly produced enough denim to make 700,000 pairs of blue jeans a week; it’s mostly vacant now and Bowden said it could potentially house a museum.
“Kids these days and kids 20 years from now will have no idea what textiles were,” he said.
Erwin and Franklinville, however, aren’t the only mill towns looking to preserve textile history. Several small local museums are dedicated to textiles, including the Textile Heritage Museum in Alamance County’s Glencoe community and the Textile Heritage Center in Cooleemee. None are state-run, a status that could bring more funding and more visitors.
North Carolina’s last new historic site, Horne Creek Farm in Surry County, opened in the late 1980s, according to a DNCR spokeswoman. SB 525 follows the standard process for new historic sites and museums by starting with a feasibility study.
Once the Erwin and Franklinville studies are completed by May 1, the findings will be shared with a legislative oversight committee and local leaders. The legislature will ultimately decide if it wants to move forward with the museum project and allocate funding.
Published On : 26-08-2019
Source : Herald Sun
