Chambers County AlArchives History .....Textile Towns Of The Chattahoochee Valley 1949
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Valerie (Johnson) Freeman http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00009.html#0002248 May 21, 2005, 9:20 pm

Book Title: 

The cover says:
 
The Six Textile Towns of the
Chattahoochee
	Valley

RIVER VIEW, ALA. FAIRFAX, ALA.
LANGDALE, ALA. SHAWMUT, ALA.
LANETT, ALA. WEST POINT, GA.

COPYRIGHT MCMXLIX BY CURT TEICH & CO., INC., CHICAGO U.S.A.

Inside:

"THE VALLEY"

A long the banks of the Chattahoochee River in east central Alabama and west 
central Georgia, lies the industrial community widely known as THE VALLEY.  It 
is comprised of six inter-locked towns, located within a radius of three miles: 
Lanett, Shawmut, Langdale, Fairfax, and River View, Alabama; and directly 
across the state line from Lanett, West Point, Georgia.

The total population of the six towns is approximately 35,000.  Cotton textile 
manufacturing, dyeing, bleaching and finishing are the principal industries.

Historically THE VALLEY had its beginning as one of the many settlements in 
this section of the Creek (Muscogee) Indians.  Trading posts were established 
here as early as 1800.  In 1831 a group of settlers from Georgia founded the 
town of Franklin, changing its name the following year to West Point.

It was in West Point that the battle of Fort Tyler was fought - the last 
important military engagement in the War Between the States east of the 
Mississippi River.  Following this war, when former President Jefferson Davis 
was passing through West Point, his daughter, Winnie, was introduced to the 
public here as "the daughter of the Confederacy," from which phrase the U. D. 
C. later took its founding name.  Sidney Lanier's famous poem, "The Song of the 
Chattahoochee," written for his local kinswoman, Mrs. W. H. Lanier, was 
published first in a West Point newspaper.

The cotton textile industry of THE VALLEY dates from 1866, when two groups of 
local merchants and planters built the original mills here: the Alabama-Georgia 
Manufacturing Company, as present Langdale.  In 1880, under the leadership of 
Lafayette Lanier, the West Point Manufacturing Company was organized, when it 
purchased the properties of the mill at Langdale.

Today the West Point Manufacturing Company operates mills in each of the five 
Alabama towns of THE VALLEY.  The Lanett Bleachery and Dye Works, one of the 
largest industries of its kind in the country, is also located in Lanett.

THE VALLEY is the home of the nationally advertised Martex towels.  Other mills 
in the West Point group manufacture a wide variety of cotton duck, drills, 
twills, sateens, and sheetings, which are used extensively by the rubber, 
automotive, electrical, oil, sugar, paint, and many other industries.  
Approximately 8,500 people are employed in the local mills.


GENUINE CURTECH-CHICAGO * C. T. AMERICAN ART * CREATION (REG. U.S. PAT. OFF.) D-
8970


Additional Comments:
I believe the Mrs. W. H. Lanier who Sydney Lanier wrote the poem for is Susan 
L. (Lawson) Lanier, the widow of William Henry Lanier.  William served in 
Killed in battle during the Stoneman Raid on 30 July 1863 near Clinton/Macon, 
Jones County, GA. He was Capt. of West Point Light Guards, Co. D, 4th Regiment, 
GA Volunteer Infantry, C.S.A.  Left West Point on 26 April 1861 for 
mobilization in Augusta, GA.  Promoted to 2nd Lieutenant 9 May 1861; re-signed 
in May 1862.

His body was brought home and buried at Pinewood Cemetery in West Point, Troup 
Co., Georgia.

According to my personaly FTM file, William Henry Lanier and Sidney Clopton 
Lanier were 2nd cousin, once removed, sharing the common ancestors of James 
Lanier and Mary (Cooke) Lanier.

William Henry Lanier was the son of Reuben Lanier and Arabella Elizabeth 
Crockett.   He was the eldest brother of Lafayette Lanier.  Lafayette Lanier m. 
Ada Alice Huguley, daughter of George Huguley and Gabrella (Arabella) Alice 
Dallis.




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