Bibb City Historic District

Bibb City is a former textile mill village on the Chattahoochee River just north of Columbus, Georgia. It grew around the Columbus plant of the Bibb Manufacturing Company, whose main mill was built in phases from 1900 to 1920 on a high bluff known as Lovers' Leap. The district also contains the dam and powerhouse, a water tower, workers' houses, and community buildings such as a school, a church, an auditorium and a natatorium. The first houses, from 1900, were designed by Robert & Company. After World War I the company hired landscape architect Earle S. Draper to lay out a new village. He worked with the hills and river views, creating curving streets, terraced lots and small neighborhood loops. Craftsman bungalows, duplexes and cottages filled the new streets. The village is noteworthy because its plan, streetscapes and buildings survive and show how a large Southern mill company housed and organized its workers. The mill itself was lost to fire in 2008.