Witham Cotton Mills Village Historic District

Laid out around 1894 beside the Witham Cotton Mills, this roughly 18-acre mill village in Hartwell, Georgia, preserves the housing built for textile workers along Jackson Street, Webb Street and Liberty Circle. Most of the 47 contributing buildings are one-story frame houses with a saddlebag plan, central chimney, two front doors and front and rear porches. A smaller group of two-story versions with salt box-like rooflines gave families of different sizes a choice of space. Brick bungalows were built in the early 20th century for supervisors, and a few Victorian cottages, one with a sunburst gable, were absorbed into the village. The district was listed for its architecture, for community planning and development, and for social history. It documents typical Georgia mill housing, the way owners provided a stable workforce near the edge of town, and the daily lives of Hartwell's industrial workers between 1894 and 1930. The altered mill to the north and a lost school and church are no longer part of it.