Discover Georgia's National Park Service Augusta Enterprise Mill

Discover Georgia's National Park Service Augusta Engine Company No. 1 that illustrates the City of Augusta's recognition of the need to shift from a volunteer to a paid fire department to improve public protection. Noteworthy as the first firehouse in the city constructed as a public building, it is representative of the city’s late 19th-century public buildings and of the urban, “storefront-style” firehouses of the period.

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NPS Augusta Canal National Heritage Area

Augusta Engine Company Number One History

Around the mid-19th century, the public became dissatisfied with the social-club attitudes and lack of efficiency of volunteer fire fighting companies. In 1853, the first American steam fire engine was built, and horses to pull the heavy steam engines became a standard part of the department. The change in firefighting equipment and the organization of paid fire departments brought a new era of professionalism and subsequent changes to firehouse design. Following national trends in firefighting, in 1886 the Augusta City Council disbanded all volunteer companies and absorbed them into a city fire department. The city built Engine Company Number One as the first public firehouse for this new city administered and paid system of fire protection.

Designed by Augusta architect Lewis F. Goodrich and constructed by G. Rounds in 1892, the rectangular, 2-story, masonry firehouse stands detached on a narrow city lot. Its architectural details are an eclectic Victorian combination including Italianate corbelled brickwork, segmental arched window and door openings, and a prominent Romanesque arch. An elaborate square wooden bell tower that gave architectural emphasis to the building is now gone, but the building’s façade retains the oversized first floor entranceway that identified it as a firehouse.

While the stylistic front facade portrays the building’s importance as a public firehouse, the remainder of the exterior is utilitarian. Two masonry outbuildings used as hay, feed, and coal storage are attached to the building’s rear. They were constructed prior to 1904 and may date from 1892 with the main building.

The firehouse interior reflected the art of firefighting in the 1890s. The first floor was one large space that accommodated the steam engine, hose wagon, horses and all other necessary equipment. The second floor consisted of a large dormitory space for the men, plus three smaller rooms for offices, meeting rooms and a bath. Interior features include beaded tongue-and-groove ceilings, unornamented plaster walls, plain cast iron columns for interior support, simple door and window moldings, upper wood floors, and lower concrete floors.

In 1954 Engine Company Number One moved to new quarters. A theater used the building, and it later became offices for the city’s electrical department. An engineering firm, Cranston, Robertson & Whitehurst, rehabilitated the building for offices in 1985.

Engine Company Number One is located at 452 Ellis St. within the boundaries of the Augusta Downtown Historic District. It is not open to the public.

Why and How Enterprise Mill was Built

James L. Coleman first developed the Enterprise Mill in 1848 as a flour milling operation. Coleman, an Augusta farmer, had a great interest in industrialization and had plans to build a mill on his plantation as early as 1845.

In keeping with Coleman's ideas, the City Council of Augusta created a general fund for the planning and construction of a power canal. Coleman petitioned the City Council to change the route of the proposed canal to supply his land with waterpower, based on his plans for the flour mill. On May 22, 1845, the Canal Commissioners resolved that: "The engineer be instructed to run the line of the canal through Coleman's land as to give him the desired space for his Mill House."

On June 14, 1847, Coleman received his water right, and throughout the next year, boatmen barged stone quarried near Stallings Island to the construction site. Coleman began construction of the four-story granite mill and completed it in 1848. He built the mill with two overshot waterwheels that drove burrstones, a sawmill in an adjacent wood frame building, and various other machinery, for a cost of $40,000.

Since 1881, the roofline has since been altered, and the granite portion is now 3 stories. Interestingly, of the 4 manufactories built along the Augusta Canal before 1850, only the granite mill remains.

In 1853, Benjamin Warren, Coleman's brother in law, purchased the mill through a sheriff's foreclosure sale. Warren operated the mill until 1863 when he sold out to three Augusta merchants including George T. Jackson. In 1873, a brick structure was added to the granite mill, although its function is uncertain.

The canal was enlarged between 1872 and 1875, prompting several industrialists to venture into the manufacturing of textiles. In fact, city officials offered financial incentives to those who would bring such facilities to Augusta. George Jackson, whose brother William was then president of the nearby Augusta Factory, followed suit. In 1876, he met with Jones S. Davis, a builder and superintendent of mills in Massachusetts, who had just completed a textile mill in Atlanta. Davis proposed to Jackson that he hire him to design and construct a mill and procure second-hand British mill machinery. The Jacksons convened a public meeting and gained the support of several key investors.

They formed the Enterprise Manufacturing Company on March 10, 1877, with $150,000 in capital and shares at $100 each.

Davis designed a three-story brick structure with a central stair tower. In anticipation of future expansion, he planned for twice the necessary power needs by placing two turbines near the north end of the mill. The first brick was laid on March 22, 1877, and the mill was completed by fall of that year. Machinery came from Holyoke and Lowell, Massachusetts, as well as from England. They placed 242 looms on the first floor, 14 British carding machines on the second, and 13,822 spindles on the third. The project cost nearly $200,000.00. Davis received great acclaim for his work and went on to design and build the larger and more ornate Sibley Mill located just up the Augusta Canal.

While the mill was quite prosperous for the first few years, a surprising turn of events forced it to be shut down in 1884. President George Jackson was caught embezzling funds that he used to speculate on the cotton market and he was jailed. Rather than declare bankruptcy, the directors issued and successfully sold $250,000 worth of preferred stock. Local lawyer and cotton broker James P. Verdery became president and carried Enterprise through the 1884 market collapse and a major strike in 1886.

In 1888, Verdery had a 120 by 120-foot weaving room added onto the mill on the Greene Street side for a cost of $140,000. The mill superintendent ordered more and improved spindles, looms, and carding machines in the constant quest for higher quality. In fact, in 1890, historian Charles C. Jones called the Enterprise's product "the finest cloth made in the South." The yarn was more refined and the cloth produced was lighter by a yard per pound than other locally produced cloth. Jones noted that 520 operatives annually produced 9,000 bales of cotton into 14 million yards of Brown Sheetings, Shirting, and Drills.

Little documentation remains to substantiate events at Enterprise between in 1888 and 1920 when the company purchased a new hydroelectric plant. They bought two #45 Type N turbines, draft tubes and wheel shaft extensions from S. Morgan Smith and Company, along with two .750 KW A.C. generators from General Electric. In order to drive the new equipment, Enterprise had to slowly increase its waterpower contract to four times its original contract.

Around this time the large Graniteville Company was expanding rapidly. It acquired Sibley Mill, and in 1923, purchased a controlling interest in Enterprise. In 1936, Graniteville combined the Enterprise and Sibley operations, and in 1940, both mills became divisions of the Graniteville Company. The Graniteville Company-Enterprise Division stayed in operation until it officially closed its doors on March 23, 1983. For more info and pictures, visit EnterpriseMill.com.

Contact and Address Info

Phone: 706-823-0440
Address: 1450 Greene Street, Suite 400, Augusta, GA 30901