The People and Families of Pacolet
From its beginning in 1883 and on down to recent times, Pacolet Mills has been a source of jobs and employment. To many folks, over most of the last 130 years, Pacolet Mills was almost like the "Promised Land". It was a place where you could work and make cash money on a regular basis. Your family and children had more security than in a life of farming. Some families that found work already lived nearby in the Pacolet vicinity. For the most part, they gave up full time farming to work in the new industries. Other families came from all over the Upstate of South Carolina and down from the mountains of North Carolina. They all had a common story - they needed work and they heard that jobs could be found at the textile mill at Pacolet. Almost all were native born. They packed up their belongings and moved to the mill alongside the Pacolet River to start a new life. In the early days, almost all of the family, including the children, worked in the mill. For a long time, the work schedule was 12 hours a day and a half day on Saturday.
By our modern standards, this was a hard life. However, our ancestors must have preferred it to the never ending toil and uncertain conditions of farming. Most that came to the mills stayed to raise their families there. Read about the changes in the generations and their connection to the mill.
There are many residents or former residents whose families have been associated with Pacolet Mills or the Pacolet area for over a hundred years. Behind each of these families there is a wonderful story of how they came to Pacolet, their successes and trials and failures. To read some of these family stories, click on the link below.
We earnestly solicit you to send us your family's story and how it is connected to the story of Pacolet. We welcome memories, photographs, and incidents that can be added to the Pacolet story. We are particularly interested in how your family came to be connected to Pacolet. Also, we encourage you to share the biography of someone in your family to tell their individual story. Please send to Pacolet Family Stories.
This web site has been started as a public service to share the story of Pacolet.