 Avondale Mills in Birmingham | |
| Company type | Textile Mill |
|---|---|
| Industry | Textiles |
| Founded | 1897 |
| Founder | The Trainer Family of Chester, PA; Braxton Bragg Comer; The Birmingham Commercial Club |
| Defunct | July, 2006 |
The Avondale Mills were a system of textile mills located predominantly in Alabama, but also in Georgia and South Carolina, with headquarters in Birmingham, and later in Sylacauga, Alabama. The Birmingham neighborhood of Avondale was chosen to be the site of the first mill, hence the naming of the company. Founded in 1897, the mills employed thousands of Alabamians throughout its 109-year history until they closed in 2006. Avondale Mills was founded in 1897 by a consortium of investors including the Trainer family of Chester, Pennsylvania, the future governor of Alabama, Braxton Bragg Comer, and a group of Birmingham civic leaders including Frederick Mitchell Jackson Sr.
The mills refined the plentiful cotton from Alabama fields and, at its peak, devoured 20% of the entire state of Alabama's cotton production. The owners and operators of Avondale Mills were noted not only for progressive stances with regards to the overall well-being of their workers, but also for conditions of child labor that, while common at the time, are today considered abusive.
The mills were operated solely in Alabama until Donald Comer released control of Avondale Mills to his brother-in-law, Craig Smith, who helped expand the mills into both Georgia and South Carolina. Walton Monroe Mills Inc. purchased Avondale Mills in 1986. In 1995, the owning firm acquired the textile operations of the Graniteville Company. Disaster struck when, on the morning of January 6, 2005, a train accident outside of the Graniteville, South Carolina, mill caused a large chlorine gas leak from a ruptured tank car that killed 9 people on the train and surrounding area. In 2006, as a result of the Graniteville disaster and increased competition from overseas, Avondale formally shuttered its operations.