Chicopee Mill and Village Historic District

Chicopee Mill and Village is a company town built in 1927 on the edge of Gainesville, Georgia, for the Chicopee Manufacturing Company, which wanted a new southern plant after a five-year site search. West of U.S. Highway 23 stands a brick mill, 954 by 236 feet, trimmed in white terra-cotta and built on a single floor. East of the highway lies a village of about 220 homes, mostly one-story brick-veneered Craftsman bungalows, arranged along curving streets around a green and a large park. Landscape architect Earle Sumner Draper drew on English Garden City and suburban models, and the plan included street trees, sidewalks, underground electric lines and storm sewers. The district is considered significant for community planning, landscape architecture, architecture and industry. The mill is described as one of the earliest single-story textile factories, the housing as far better than typical mill villages, and the whole as a record of the textile industry's move south and of company paternalism.