Leila, Mary, Cotton Mill and Village

Northwest of downtown Greensboro, Georgia, this 47-acre district combines a cotton mill with the village built for its workers. The Mary Leila Cotton Mill was founded in 1899 by E. A. Copelan and W. R. Jackson, who named it for their wives, and it opened in 1900 with jobs for about 100 residents. The company built roughly 75 one-story frame houses, mostly shotgun, Victorian and Craftsman types, on a grid of streets with alleys, granite curbing, a central ballfield, stores and a church. The brick manufacturing building, with its square tower, grew through additions in 1912 and 1957. A few older dwellings along Richland Street, including the antebellum brick John Godkin House, were absorbed into the village. The district is considered important for its architecture, its planning as a typical Southern mill village, its role in the New South industrial movement and Greensboro's shift from a farm economy, its union history, and its landscape features. The period of significance runs from 1899 to 1934.