Main Street Historic District (Boundary Expansion)

Florence Mill is a five-acre textile complex at 186 Mill Street in Forest City, North Carolina, added to the Main Street Historic District as a boundary expansion. The red brick mill was built in 1897 with heavy timber interiors, a packer house, boiler house, engine house and a 125-foot smokestack. Warehouses followed in 1922-23, 1932 and 1941, the 1932 one originally a Hewitt Motor Company showroom. Later Cone Mills additions and equipment are counted as noncontributing. The mill was financed by Raleigh Rutherford Haynes and partners, and it produced cotton sheeting, flannel, corduroy and denim until 2001. Cone Mills gained majority ownership by 1940 and renamed it the Florence Plant in 1953. The complex is considered important for its part in the textile industry of Rutherford County and the growth of Forest City. Its period of significance runs from 1897 to 1954. The property is currently vacant.