Porterdale Historic District

Porterdale is a textile mill town along the Yellow River in central Newton County, Georgia, made up of three brick mill complexes and a village of roughly 500 frame mill houses. The Porterdale Mill dates to 1899, the Osprey Mill to 1916 and the Welaunee Mill to about 1920. Houses are mostly saddlebag, gabled-ell and bungalow types on streets that follow the hilly terrain rather than a grid. Community buildings include churches, a gymnasium, a community building, a railroad depot and the Welaunee Inn, built for unmarried female mill workers. Rose Hill, with small saddlebag houses and a brick church and school, housed the Black mill workers. A custom-designed concrete bridge and five water towers add to the landscape. The district was listed because it shows how a mill company built and controlled a complete community, and because it preserves mills, housing and support buildings together from 1871 to 1951.