The Textile History of West Point, Georgia
A brief historical overview
1 | Beginnings along the Chattahoochee, 1866–1880
West Point’s textile industry emerged in the years following the Civil War, when local leaders sought new ways to rebuild the regional economy. In 1866, James W. McClendon established the Chattahoochee Manufacturing Company by converting a grist mill in what is now Langdale, Alabama, into a cotton factory. Around the same time, George Huguley established the Alabama-Georgia Manufacturing Company at Riverview. Although the mills stood across the state line in Alabama, much of their financing, management, and leadership came from West Point, Georgia.
The first factories produced osnaburgs, a coarse woven cotton cloth often used for sacks. Chattahoochee Manufacturing operated approximately 50 looms and 3,000 spindles and employed 75 to 100 workers. These were significant operations for the period, but they remained vulnerable to economic downturns. Both companies struggled during the Panic of 1873.
Brothers Lafayette and Ward Crockett Lanier, who had built successful commercial and financial interests in West Point, invested in the mills and helped guide their recovery. Experienced English textile supervisors Thomas and William Lang introduced the production of flat duck, a durable canvas-like cotton fabric useful for sails, tents, and wagon covers. The change opened broader markets and improved profitability. The community of Langdale was named in recognition of the Langs.
The Lanier interests also developed relationships with Northern selling agents, linking the valley’s factories to customers well beyond the region. By the 1880s, the mills had earned a reputation for durable cotton duck. This combination of local leadership, skilled labor, new equipment, and national distribution established the foundation for West Point’s long textile history.
2 | Expansion, innovation, and mill villages, 1880–1920
The Lanier brothers gained control of Chattahoochee Manufacturing and reorganized it as the West Point Manufacturing Company. When its mill burned in 1886, they secured financing and rebuilt a much larger facility, with approximately 12,000 spindles and 300 looms. The company continued to invest in modern machinery and additional factories.
Lafayette Lanier later brought the Riverview operation under the company’s influence. Lanett Cotton Mills opened in 1894, followed by the Lanett Bleachery and Dye Works in 1895. These facilities expanded both production and finishing capabilities, allowing cloth to be woven, bleached, dyed, and prepared for sale within the same regional industrial network.
By 1910, the Lanier textile interests included five mills employing at least 2,300 people. Shawmut, constructed in 1907–1908, became the valley’s first fully electric mill. It also marked a shift in how mill communities were planned. Earlier workers’ housing had generally developed in informal clusters near the factories; Shawmut introduced a more deliberate village plan with housing and community facilities.
Mill villages became central to daily life. The factories provided work, while surrounding neighborhoods housed generations of families. Schools, churches, and other community institutions developed alongside the industry. The mills shaped where people lived, how they worked, and the rhythms of local life. Their influence reached across the Chattahoochee River, binding West Point and neighboring Alabama communities through shared labor and commerce.
A new factory at Fairfax began construction in 1915 and became particularly associated with towel production. Together, these developments transformed the valley from a collection of small postwar mills into a major textile manufacturing center.
3 | The Lanier legacy and national growth, 1920–1965
In the early twentieth century, George Huguley Lanier became a leading figure in the family’s textile enterprises. West Point Manufacturing consolidated several related mills during the 1920s, bringing facilities at Riverview and Lanett into a more unified operation. The company also expanded into household textiles, including towels, and acquired the Martex brand.
The Great Depression challenged manufacturers nationwide, yet West Point Manufacturing continued to operate and expand. In 1933, the company purchased Dixie Cotton Mill in LaGrange, Georgia, extending its manufacturing footprint beyond the immediate Chattahoochee Valley. By 1935, the Lanier-controlled mills employed at least 4,868 people, underscoring the industry’s importance to local families.
During World War II, textile factories responded to wartime demand, producing fabrics and other essential goods. In 1945, West Point Manufacturing acquired its longtime selling agency, Wellington Sears & Company, strengthening its control over distribution and adding manufacturing interests. Further acquisitions followed in Dalton and Columbus, Georgia, broadening the company’s product lines into carpets and other textiles.
The business increasingly connected local manufacturing with national markets. Products that began as cotton duck, sheets, and towels became recognizable consumer brands. The company’s headquarters remained in West Point even as operations expanded across the region and beyond.
In 1965, West Point Manufacturing merged with Pepperell, creating West Point-Pepperell. This merger began a new chapter in which a company rooted in West Point became part of a much larger and increasingly diversified textile enterprise. The company’s growth reflected the skill of generations of workers as well as the business leadership that guided its expansion.
4 | West Point-Pepperell, change, and decline, 1965–2005
West Point-Pepperell continued expanding during the later twentieth century. Joseph L. Lanier Jr. became president in 1974 and later chairman and chief executive officer. By 1980, the company reported approximately $2.2 billion in sales and employed 35,000 people across 15 states and nine countries. Acquisitions added carpets, clothing, home textiles, and international brands to its business.
Rapid growth also brought financial risks. A major acquisition of J. P. Stevens increased the company’s debt, and a hostile takeover by William Farley followed in the late 1980s. The takeover ended the Lanier family’s direct leadership and created financial turmoil. The company underwent further restructuring during the early 1990s.
In 1993–1994, restructuring and consolidation led to the creation of WestPoint Stevens. The company worked to modernize facilities and rebuild its market position, but mounting losses and wider changes in the American textile industry weakened its operations. WestPoint Stevens filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2004. Its assets were sold in 2005, and the successor business, WestPoint Home, continued to market several historic textile brands.
The decline and closure of mills changed the Chattahoochee Valley profoundly. Manufacturing jobs that had sustained families for generations disappeared, and West Point’s long role as a textile corporate headquarters came to an end. Yet former mill buildings, neighborhoods, photographs, and family stories continue to reveal how deeply the industry shaped the region.
West Point’s textile history is therefore more than a story of companies and machinery. It is also a history of workers, households, community relationships, technological change, and the difficult transition away from an economy long defined by cloth production.
5 | An enduring legacy: industry, people, and Woven Past
The textile industry helped define West Point for more than a century. Although many factories were physically located across the river in Alabama, West Point served as an important center of investment, decision-making, and community life. From early osnaburg and cotton duck to towels and household textiles, the region’s mills connected local workers to markets across the country and beyond.
The industry’s legacy also lives in later textile innovations elsewhere in Troup County. West Point native Ray Anderson founded Interface in 1973, developing a new business around modular carpet tile. Interface later became known for its emphasis on environmental sustainability. Its story illustrates how the region’s textile expertise continued to inspire new forms of manufacturing even as older cotton mills declined. Interface is part of the wider regional story, rather than a West Point Manufacturing mill.
Today, the history of West Point’s mills can be understood through the skills and actions involved in making cloth. Weaving joins individual threads into a stronger, patterned whole. It is both a practical process and a fitting way to think about a community shaped by many generations of workers and families.