A Brief Look at a Century of Lowe Mill


Arts at Lowe Mill ARTS & EntertainmentMassachusetts resident Arthur H. Lowe formed Lowe Manufacturing Co. in 1900, and began construction on what would become Huntsville’s eighth textile mill.

Lowe Mill opened its doors in 1901 as a textile mill, producing weaving yarns, ginghams, and shirts, but it would see many changes in its ownership and function over the years. Here’s a brief timeline:

In 1902, Eastern Manufacturing Co. opened a weaving mill across the street from Lowe Mill. Five years later, the two companies merged. In 1909, Lowe sold his interest in the company to Charles Poor, a Columbia University astronomy professor. In 1929, the Great Depression hit. Three years later, Lowe Manufacturing Co. was forced to declare bankruptcy. In 1933, the Mill reopened as Lowe Mills, Inc. under the leadership of David Comer, the head of Birmingham’s Avondale Mills. In 1934, thousands of workers went on strike, which led to tension between strikers and police and dramatic events like the violent kidnapping of the strike organizer. Nearly two years later, the mill was bought by another New Yorker, Edwin Farham Greene, and became Lowe Corp. Just over a year after Greene came into the picture, Lowe Corp. was dissolved. In 1937, Walter Laxson bought the mill and turned it into a cotton warehouse.

Arts at Lowe Mill It was late 1945 when the mill’s future changed drastically. The Nashville-based Genesco turned a textile facility of different sorts into a shoe factory, providing 800 Huntsvillians with jobs. Two decades later, in 1969, most of the U.S. troops in Vietnam were wearing boots made at the Genesco factory in Huntsville. However, in 1978, Genesco closed its doors, and Martin Industries bought the mill and turned it into a warehouse for commercial and residential heating systems.

Over the years, Huntsville’s other notable mills—Merrimack, Dallas, and Lincoln—fell victim to fire or demolition. However, Lowe Mill has survived a century of turbulence with a lot of help from Huntsville historians, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists. In 1997, the West Huntsville Civic Association was formed to save Historic Lowe Mill Village, which includes shotgun houses, homes made from discarded WWI bomb crates, rock houses, and 1920’s bungalows relocated from downtown Huntsville. In 1999, Gene McLain, a commercial real estate agent, bought what was then a decaying mill. Then, in early 2001, Jim Hudson, founder of Research Genetics, bought the building from McLain and has since been restoring and revitalizing the facility.

Today, under Hudson’s ownership, Lowe Mill Properties houses facilities for the arts and sciences. The mill facilitates the operations for both a genetics research company Operon, as well as Lowe Mill Arts & Entertainment, which provides spaces for organizations like Flying Monkey Arts.

 

Take Time to look at our Lowe Mill Timeline