Artists Tour of York County

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The Mill Hill - Mill villages are found all over this region. Whenever an industrial mill developed it was surrounded by row upon row of mill houses or "mill hills". Workers could rent a house for as little as $4.00 a month, have credit at the company store, take advantage of a community laundry service, and go to the company infirmary. The tradition was developed from simple necessity. The practice was begun in England during the Industrial Revolution. To run the complex machinery, a power source was needed. The most abundant was water power. The mills were built in sparsely populated rural areas where there were river rapids . Workers were recruited from urban areas and the villages were built to house them. This practice was copied in New England then again in the South. By the start of W.W.I, the practice had all but died out in New England when better transportation sources were developed and workers no longer had to walk to work. The South clung to the mill village concept and the villages continued to grow for the next few decades, but by the early 50's, most mill houses in the South had been sold by the mills.
The White Plant is the second oldest mill in Fort Mill - the oldest was the Fort Mill Manufacturing Company ( now Springs industries), which was begun in 1887. The original mill is no longer standing.

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Jenny Hamilton