CatWalkChatt - Crystal Springs Print Works in Chickamauga shuttered
From CatWalkChatt.com
Toney Atkins comments: Another big piece of my personal history apparently has died. The once bustling cotton mill and bleachery (formerly known as Crystal Springs Bleachery) operated 24 hours a day, and it provided most Chickamaugans with jobs and rental homes. My parents, grandmother, several aunts, uncles and cousins all worked at the plant during the time that I was born and until at least a few years after I was graduated from Gordon Lee Memorial High School. I was employed there as a laborer in the bleachery and then in its laboratory for two years before deciding to attend college. Except for the period of his service during World War II, my father worked at this heartbeat of the town most of his life. A few years after he retired from a supervisory position, he returned to the plant to work as a security guard. Many if not most of my friends and classmates lived in the "mill villages" that were built by the operation, one on either side of the lake that was spawned by crystal clear underground springs that flowed from a cavern just south of downtown. Learning about the business' closure saddens me, but it makes me happy to know that the small town of Chickamauga and its citizenry live on.
2 comments:
It also makes me sad Toney. I worked there for several years in the weave shop then again in the office of the dye house and print shop. One thing I learned about working there was that I wanted to go back to school and get more education and training so I didn't have to spend my life there like so many did.
It was a place where people sweated their lives away and made a living for their families. I can remember my great grand father walking home from work with his lunch box. I would stop him and ask if he had eaten all of his lunch. I wasn't starving or anything like that I just thought it was special if it was in his lunch box. He always saved me a tea cake if granny had packed one in his lunch that morning. There are a lot of memories in and about that place. Good and bad. I have a friend who was still working there when it closed. He had been there from when I first went to work there. That's a long time. Wonder what will happen to the buildings?
Are the springs still crystal clear?
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