Center for Public History
State University of West Georgia
Banning Mill Collection
Finding Aid
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Scope and Content


The Banning Mill Collection is composed of research done by graduate students working with funds from Patricia Brown of Banning Mill Enterprises. Primary and secondary sources have been compiled which include oral history interviews, thesis projects and papers, artifacts, maps, photographs, census records, and newspaper articles.

Box and Folder Listing
Document Box #1 started 1999 by Arden Williams in conjunction with the Banning GRA and her thesis project. Status: Ongoing.
• Assorted Information
• Chronology
• Deed Records
• Georgia Power Plans
• Dr. Copley Goodwin Papers
• Tommie Phillips LaCavera Family Tree (3 generations of mill workers)
• Mill Charters
• Mill Jobs and Information
• Original Documents
• Owners: Bowen Brothers
• Owners: William Amis
• Owners: Arthur Hutchenson
• Copies of Photographs
• Copies of Sanborn Insurance Maps
• Skirmish at Moore’s Bridge, July 13, 1864
• Tax Assessor Records
• Request for National Register of Historic Places

Document Box #2 started 1999 by Arden Willliams in conjunction with the Banning GRA and her thesis project. Status: Ongoing.
• Area Maps
• Excerpts from Carroll County Books
• Local Cemetery Listings
• Local Census Reports
• Other Mills-Arnall/Newnan
• Other Mills-Atlanta
• Other Mills-Augusta
• Other Mills-Bowden/Villa Rica
• Other Mills-Carroll/Mandeville
• Other Mills-Fitzgerald
• Other Mills-Rome
• Other Mills-Troup County
• Other Mills-West Point
• Other Mills-Assorted
• Unions and 1934 Strike
• Reference Articles

Document Box #3 Various Newspaper Articles collected by Arden Williams in 1999-2001. Status: Ongoing.
• Index of Banning Articles
• Assorted News Articles, Recent
• Carroll County Times Newspaper Articles-1872-1873, 1880
• Assorted News Articles-Vintage
• Carroll County Newspaper Articles, 1881
• Carroll County Times, 1884
• Carroll County Times, 1911
• Carroll County Newspaper Articles, 1912
• Carroll County Newspaper Articles, 1914
• Carroll County Newspaper Articles, 1915
• Carroll County Times, 1919
• Carroll County Times, 1931, 1935
• Carroll County Times, 1936
• Carroll County Times, 1938
• Carroll County Times, 1939
• Carroll County Times, 1940

Document Box #4 Research by Carey Tilley for his thesis project. Status: Collection Complete May 2002.
• Memories & Material Culture: Southern Textile Mill Village
• Draft of Banning Paper
• Survey of Visible Cultural Resources on the Banning Mill Property, 6/00
• Survey of Visual Cultural Resources on Banning Mill Property, 1/01
• Thesis Paper

Document Box #5 Research and Photographs by Arden William. Status: Collection Complete Aug. 2002.
• The Threads of a Community Exhibit
• The Threads of a Community Exhibit continued
• Exhibit Section #1
• Exhibit Section #2
• Exhibit Section #3
• Exhibit Section #4
• Exhibit Section #5
• Exhibit Section #6
• Process Section and Overall Biography
• Arden William’s Thesis Essay
• The Children of Banning Speak
• Life Was Good on the Mill Village
• “Elements Contributing to a Class Structure”
• On Going Biography
• Internship Notebook, Spring 1999
• Early Draft Abstract/Appendix
• Drafts of Exhibit Timeline/Index
• Early Thesis Draft

Document Box #6 Research and Photographs by Mark Barron. Status: Collection Complete Aug. 2002
• Photographs
• Banning Photos and Negatives
• Industrial Biography
• Report Copy, Larry Gross
• Report-Sanborn Analysis and Visual Study
• Floppy disc: Banning

Artifact Box #7 Surface artifacts #1-20 collected by Carey Tilley, Summer 2000 Artifact Box #8 Surface artifacts #21-35 collected by Carey Tilley, Summer 2000
• Please see “Survey of Visible Cultural Resources on the Banning Mill Property” by Carey Tilley (located in box # 4) for more information on these artifacts. The survey contains an overview of the ridges, the vicinity of the mill building and along Snake Creek, titles researched on property to the textile mill a Banning, Georgia, 1847-1999, charters granted to some of the operators of the textile mill at Banning, and a list of isolated rock piles.

Database Search Terms/Keywords
Banning mill, mill villages, mill village life, textile mills, architectural survey, cultural resource survey, material culture, folklore, oral history, and Whitesburg.

Separate Materials
Contemporary photographs of Banning Mill are located under “B” it the Photo Collection Boxes. Negatives can be found in the black file folders located in the Center. Photographs donated by an interviewee can be located in the file folder of that interviewee in the Interview boxes, A-Z. Bound copies of thesis research done on Banning can be found in the Center or the Graduate School. “The Making of Textiles and Banning Mill” research on the process of making cloth and profiles of additional Georgia mills can be found in a grey binder in the Center. Disks and CDs with hard copies of Banning research and photographs can also be found in the Center. For more information on mills in Carroll County, see material relating to Sewell, Hubbard, and Mandeville by searching the database. Research done on New Manchester, a mill built around the same as Banning, can be found in the “History of New Manchester at Sweetwater” box.

Interview List
Interview tapes are listed in alphabetical order in the Center. Interview files with indexed or transcribed interviews, biographical information, and additional notes can be found in the individual file boxes labeled A-Z.

1. Bobby Argo interviewed by Arden Williams on 10/20/99
2. Glen Argo interviewed by Violet Miles on 7/14/99
3. Norman Broom interviewed by Stephanie Sims on 8/31/99
4. Hazel Brown interviewed by Stephanie Sims on 10/17/00
5. Paul and Minnie Brown, email correspondence with Teresa Beyer from 11/2003-
6. Minnie Brown interviewed by Teresa Beyer on 3/31/04
7 . Betty Jo Cauley interviewed by Stephanie Sims on 10/2/00
8 . Billie W. Driver interviewed by Stephanie Sims on 10/4/00
9 . Pearl Driver interviewed by Stephanie Sims on 10/5/00
10 . Mary S. Duke interviewed by Stephanie Sims on 11/20/01
11 . Charles Gamble interviewed by Teresa Beyer on
12 . Barbara Gentry interviewed by Stephanie Sims on 10/3/00
13. Joe Head interviewed by Teresa Beyer on 4/5/04
14. Paul Henry interviewed twice by Stephanie Sims on 10/4/00 and 10/5/00
15. Bud Hines interviewed by Brett Whaley 3/18/02
16. John and Mary Holder interviewed by Arden Williams and Ann McCleary on 12/1/99
17. Wilson Holder interviewed by Stephanie Sims 10/11/00
18. Hershal and Talmadge Horsley interviewed by Teresa Beyer on 3/14/04
19. Mary Frances Long interviewed by Stephanie Sims 10/15/01
20 . Thelma Pate interviewed by Teresa Beyer, Kathy Furr, and Bud Hines 10/31/02
21 . Ralph Phillips interviewed by Arden Williams and Ann McCleary 5/4/99
22 . E. Richardson interviewed by Stephanie Sims on 2/6/01
23 . C. D. Smith interviewed by Stephanie Sims on 10/6/00
24 . Coley Smith interviewed by Stephanie Daniel on 11/19/98, by Lucy Bussard on 5/11/99, and Stephanie Sims on 4/6/01
25 . Floyd Smith interviewed by Stephanie Sims on 10/6/00
26. Ruth Argo Smith interviewed by Violet Miles on 7/14/99 and by Teresa Beyer on 11/12/02
27. Alton Stitcher interviewed by Teresa Beyer on 11/8/02
28. Tom S. Thomson interviewed by Violet Miles on 7/27/99 and by Arden Williams and Violet Miles on 9/9/99
29. Charles Everett Tolbert interviewed by Violet Miles three times on 7/27/99, 8/99, and 10/12/99 (with Arden Williams)
30 . T. W. Tolbert interviewed by Stephanie Sims on 10/30/00
31 . Cecil Wilson interviewed by Stephanie Sims on 7/31/99
32 . David Woodward interviewed by Teresa Beyer and Kathy Furr on 10/31/02

Creator of Finding Aid
Teresa Beyer, Graduate Assistant, Center for Public History, 4/2004