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TO DOUBLE CAPACITY.
Standard Cotton Hills to Be
a $250,000 Industry.
ANNUAL PAY-ROLL OF THE EN
LARGED PLANT, $75,000.
Cedartown Leads in the Industrial
Progress of North Georgia!
Machinery Already Purchased; Work on Buildings
to Begin in April, and Big Mill will be
Running in September.
Brilliant' as was Cedartown’s industrial record in 1900, the first
year of the now century bids fair to surpass any former achieve
ments our city has yet attained.
And the Standard Cotton Mills propose to be right in the fore
front of our advancement!
The interesting announcement which Thk Standard made last
week that this enterprise—just one year old—would double its
present size and enlarge its output accordingly, was received with
genuine pleasure by all classes of our citizens,but when it is known
that this one plant represents an investment of a quarter of a
million dollars, the business pulse of Oedartown will quicken its
paco and overy branch of industry revel in delight.
BOMB FACTS ABOUT THK KNI.AROKMKNT.
The “Greater” Standard Mills are to bo 500 feet long and 107
feet wide, with a capacity of .12,000 spindles, consuming yearly 11,000
bales of cotton worth $500,000 at present, prices, and producing a
weekly yield of 80,000 pounds of high-grade hosiery and underwear
Another gratifying feature of this company’s developments is
its determination to put their money in the mill, business alone in
stead of investing a large amount in tenement houses, “We prefer
to employ our capital in manufacturing alone,” said their general
manager to a Standard man, in discussing their movements, “and
leave the matter of house rents and real estate investments with
the people of Cedartown. If there is any margin in the house-
renting business, we will gladly leave that incidental benefit to our
citizens, desiring to make the. manufacturing business not only
profitable to ourselves but helpful to the town. We think we can
induce a sufficient number of Cedartown people to build houses to
rent to our employees without investing a dollar of our own capital
in real estate improvements.”
Thus it will be seen that this one plant will represent fully a
MR. WILLIAM PARKER,
Vice President and General Manager of the Standard Cotton Mills.
New Store!
New Goods!
DRUGS that are not a “drug on the market!’’
Get your prescriptions filled by ^
RUSSELL DRUG CO.,
Who are the Manufacturers of Russell’n Head
ache Powders.
Fresh Garden and Field Seeds.
Cor. Main and Herbert Sts.
BIG BARGAINS in
FINE FURNITURE!
By buying my Furniture in Car-Load Lots
for Spot Cash, I secure avery possible
Discount, and will
Give My Customers the Benefit.
MR. MACON O. BERRY,
President of the Standard Cotton Mills.
yarns. The enlargement of the plant will greatly increase the
number of mill hands, and the weekly pay-rolls will be proportion
ally augmented. The amount of money turned loose then on the
first of every month for salaries and wages will be over $0,000, or a
grand aggregate of $75,000 a year put into circulation to enliven
every avenue of trade!
The extension will have a basement for storage and other pur
poses, equal in dimensions to the lloor space, and will really be two
stories. The original plans of this mill provided for an enlarge
ment Inter on, and the engine and boiler house was so constructed.
The big fly-wheel and all the shafting are vastly superior to their
present requirements, and were gauged at that time to run a very
much larger nnnmut of machinery. The capacity of the picker
and card rooms was so planned, and the addition of one boiler and
another engine will meet every necessity under the changed condi
tions.
One especially gratifying feature about this enterprise is the
- certainty of its construction. All machinery and supplies of every
kind have been contracted for or purchased, and the-work of exca
vation for the foundations will begin right away. All materials
will be first-class, and the construction of the building will be on
lines of lasting permanency and substantial endurance.
The new spinning and finishing machinery will embrace every
modern appliance known to up-to-date cotton mill men, and has
been selected with the special purpose of diversifying the products
of the mill. The demands for high-grade yarns will bo cultivated,
and the manufacturers of extra line underwear and fancy hosiery
will receive special consideration'at. the hands of the Standard Mill
management. This plant when completed will have no superior in
the whole country, in point of equipment and finish.
These mill people are shrewdly taking advantage of the tem
porary depression in the yarn market, while cotton is high-priced
and yarns going down, to prepare for the re-action which is surely
coming. The enviable reputation, which the product of this mill
has won, is such that no temporary decline in the market will ma
terially affect it. There will be no unnecessary rush about the work
of construction, but everything will be completed and in readiness
for the new crop of cotton next fall. Having a sufficient supply of
cotton to run the mill at its present capacity till the first of Sep
tember, there will be no undue haste in the progress of the work
to the extent that any detail will be slighted or the efficiency of
the labor in any way impaired.
quarter of a million dollars investment in their industry alone,
leaving out the matter of warehouses and cottages.
MAYBK ANOTHER FACTORY.
A proposition was made some montsngobya Massachusetts con
cern to the Standard Mill people looking to the removal from that
Rtato to Qedartown of an entirely new cotton factory, representing
an investment of fully $100,000. The mill is new and in operation,
but is in the wrong location. It uses the lower grades of cotton—
just such an industry as Cedartown needs now in her business, but
is too far away from the cotton fields of the South. As all our
present factories use the higher grades of Cotton, there is a fine
opening fur an industry that would create a local demand for all the
inferior cotton raised by the farmers of Polk county. The trans
planting of that factory from New England to Cedartown would
savo-its owners immense freight charges on the cheaper grades of
cotton, besides the big margins in coal and the cost of labor and
other operating expenses. These reasons, with other conditions, in
duced the Massachusetts people, who know personally the gentle
men at the head of the Standard Mills, to make overtures of an
especially advantageous kind for the Oedartown parties. Their
offer was to erect new buildings entire on the unoccupied site of
the Standard Mills and remove the machinery, which is new and
tried, into the Cedartown buildings. The plant when completed
would he either sold on very desirable terms, or leased on .long
time to the Standard Mills. This would mean another big
industry for Cedartown, create a local demand for the cheaper
grades of our farmers’ cotton, and swell the cash pay-roll of our
thriving industries.
The proposition was taken under advisement at the annual
meeting of the Standard Mill stockholders here in January, but
their decision in the matter was temporarily postponed on account
of the work of enlarging their present plant as above outlined.
They did not want ton many “irons in the lire” at any one time, but
jusj lls soon as the progress of the additions to the Standard Mills
COME TO ME FOR BIG BARGAINS IN
Parlor and Bed=room Sets, Dining
Room, Hall $ Kitchen Furniture,
STOVES!
Carpets, Rugs, Hattings,
BLANKETS, COVERLETS.
J. S. COLLINS.
MR. A. W. BIRKBECK,
Secretary and Treasurer of the Standard Cotton Mills.
in Georgia as a business man, having long resided in Columbus.
Mr. Berry has all kinds of faith in Cedartown’s future, and is back
ing up his judgment with his cash. lie and his charming wife re
cently visited in this city, and received delightful social attentions
while here. Indeed it is among the strong probabilities that he
will follow his large investment here, and beeomy more closely
identified with Cedartown’s future by making this city his perma
nent home.
Mr. William Parker is vice-president and general manager,and
is one of the most competent cotton manufacturers in the South.
He was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1857, and served his appren-
ticeship in the cotton mill of his father, Mr. Peter Parker, after
wards going to Lancashire to complete liis'training for the business
of cotton manufacturing. In 1882 he came to America, and an
chored in Columbus, Ga., where he met and won in 1880 Miss Annie
Almira Berry. Two bright and interesting children blessed their
union,—Almira and William.
Mr. Parker was for years manager of the Muscogee Cotton
Mills in Columbus, going from that city to the Bibb Manufacturing
Co. in Macon, where he had charge of one of the pioneer, as well
as one of the most noted, yarn mills in the SoTith. His equipment
as a cotton mill man gained.for him wide reputation, and the fa
mous McGinnis Mills in New Orleans secured his services as man
ager. This cotton factory, with 50,000 spindles and 1,100 looms,—
the largest mill then in the whole South—Vtas the first to pay its
manager a $5,000 salary, and Mr. Parker was the lucky man. His
merit as a thorough and successful cotton manufacturer was -the
first to be recognized by this “high water-mark” compensation—his
capacity being fully demonstrated in the diversified products of
this immense factory. In 1890 Mr. Parker came to Cedartown, and
his prominent connection with the organization and erection of the
Paragon and Standard Mills are matters of well-known history in
the industrial progress of this city.
Mr. 'Alec. W. Birkbeck, the affable and efficient secretary-
treasurer, was born in the city of Philadelphia in 1808, and removed
later to Brooklyn, N. Y., with his father’s family, with whom [he
was associated in business as the treasurer of the John Birkbeck
Sugar Co. He proved himself a young man of excellent business
ability, and became the secretary of the Brooklyn Sugar House,
dealers in raw sugar, but the McKinley tariff, framed to favor the
great sugar trust, drove Mr. Birkbeck’s company out of business.
Believing that the South offered the best field for profitable
investment, and seeking the most favored section, he naturally
drifted to Cedartown. In 1890, he and Mr. Parker became identi
fied with the cotton manufacturing business here, and in the course
of time Mr. Birkbeck’s talents and means contributed very mate
rially to the construction and equipment of the Paragon and the
Standard cotton mills. He is thoroughly in love with his Southern
home, and has staked his business judgment and much of his
means in one of Cedartown’s splendid enterprises.
Mr. Birkbeck brought his immediate family here from Brook
lyn, and so pleasing has been his social contact with our people that
he ingratiated himself into the heart and good graces of one of
Cedartown’s fairest daughters. Accordingly on the 14th of Feb
ruary, 1899, he was happily united in marriage to Miss Annie Hall,
is sufficiently advanced, they will again take up the Massachusetts
problem with a view to locating here the other cotton factory.
SOMETHING ABOUT TI1K. COMPANY OFFICERS.
Mr. Macon O. Berry, of Baltimore, is the president of the com-1 the only daughter of Capt. and Mrs. W. F. Hall, and a sweet little
panv, and while he is not a resident of Cedartown, he is well known boy baby has since brought added joy to their delightful home.