The families that worked in the
mill could
rent a house from the Mill Company. The size of your
house depended on the
size of your family and your position in the mill. There
were several different size houses. A large family might
get a house with five rooms and a large hall. A smaller
family might get one with three rooms that was one end
of a duplex house. These houses had a separate entrance
and porch at each end. A medium size family might get a
four room house, with no hall, by themselves.
There were numerous outside designs for the houses.
The first houses at Pacolet Mills were built when the
Mills were first constructed in the late 1800’s.
By 1884, there were 62 houses that had been built for
the mill workers. These were later torn down to
make room for the houses that exist now. Most of the
houses that can be
seen today were built between 1915 and 1920.
There was a group of houses in
Victor Park
for supervisors and other specialty employees of the
Company. These were
mostly large two story houses with large yards.
All of the houses were well maintained by workers
hired by the Company. There were teams of painters whose
main jobs were to paint the houses inside and out. There
were also carpenters, plumbers and electricians that
handled any problems in their field.
The mill houses were probably more comfortable than
the average South Carolina house during the 1930's and
1940’s. All of the houses had
running water and inside toilet facilities. However, it
was not until after
World War II in the late 1940’s that the houses were
fitted with bathtubs.
Newspaper article from 1949 - Courtesy of Pacolet
Museum
The kitchen cook stove in most of
the houses at first, I think, used wood. Later these
were changed to kerosene or electric stoves.
Air conditioning of the houses was not done until in
the late
1950’s or 1960’s. At first, this was in the form of
window air conditioning
units. Central air conditioning systems, when installed,
did not happen
until after the houses were sold to the workers during
the 1950’s.
Then, and now, wide sidewalks connected the houses
all over the town. Almost everybody took these for
granted as we did the excellent system of storm gutters
and drains. The gutters and drains protected the town
from heavy rains. In the 1940’s a heavy rain would leave
many Upcountry towns
in a sea of mud but that was not the case in Pacolet
Mills.
The Pacolet Mills Historic District has been granted
National
Historic Register Status for most of the former village
and its houses.
Click on the link below for more information about this
and access to more
pictures and information about Pacolet Mills houses.
