GREAT FALLS, S.C. — Marie George, 39, moved back to her hometown 18 months ago to open a hair salon in downtown Great Falls.
"It’s hard, because there's not a lot of traffic here,” George said.
Great Falls is a small town that was once alive with businesses and restaurants.
Her salon on Dearborn Street was one of only two shops Channel 9 found open on a weekday afternoon in late April. The rest are vacant, for sale or boarded up.
"It was bustling here before the mills closed. Then a lot of people moved away," she said.
Census figures show that 3,553 people called Great Falls home in 1950. Only 1,936 were left in 2015—a population loss of more than 40 percent.
With a location right on the Catawba River and with Duke Energy providing electricity, Republic Cotton Mills built three plants in Great Falls, opening in 1910, 1916 and 1923.
Mills one, two and three provided jobs for most of the town. The company built up the town, bringing water, sewer, roads, shops, schools, a theater and three separate mill villages for affordable housing. Almost everyone walked to the mill.
The three mills, later bought out by J.P. Stevens, employed roughly 1,700 people by the mid ‘70s. Foreign competition and cheaper overseas labor brought everything to a halt by the early 1980s. Today, the buildings left are ruins of a bygone era, and the town hasn't recovered from the lost jobs.
According to government data, the median income is $26,041, which is far below the statewide level of $44,163. In Great Falls, 18.1 percent live in poverty compared to 14.1 percent statewide.
"You drive around and it's just not the same town no more," said William Brasington, 75.
Starting at age 19, he worked in all three mills until they shut down one by one.
"They closed, and Great Falls just went dead," Brasington said.
Now nature has made a home inside what was once the lifeblood of the town. The remaining buildings are marred by shattered windows and crawling ivy. Tall trees rise from rooftops and lean out of broken windows.
Decaying textile Mill Two still towers over Dearborn Street— the only one left standing. It's owned by the Forfeited Land Commission of Chester County, which has tried to sell it since 2011 at an annual delinquent tax auction.
A lawsuit was filed several years ago when there was a contract dispute over two separate buyers who approached the county with ideas to renovate the huge structure. The mill remained in public hands.
Mill One south of town is just ruins. Large piles of debris are scattered across 12 acres. The ground is cluttered with stone, brick, wood and metal scraps. A salvage business bought the site in 2005 and stripped it for valuable building materials, but it's now abandoned.
Mill Three burned in 2006 and toxic smoke caused an evacuation of most of Great Falls for days. Its carcass still sits at Argonne Avenue and Duke Street.
A fence and turnstile still encompass all three mills, marking the spot where hundreds of people would enter and leave work each day.
Channel 9 found EPA documents showing that since 2003, the federal government has spent more than $70,000 assessing the environmental impact at each mill.
Assessment crews have discovered PCBs, asbestos, petroleum, lead and other contaminants, but there's been no cleanup. Costs for such work can run into the hundreds of thousands when it comes to ground water contamination. Mill One has so much debris that detailed environmental testing can't even be performed, according to the EPA.
Robby Moody is a senior planner with the Catawba Regional Council of Governments, which works with communities on issues like abandoned mills.
The group compiled a guide for large textile mill cleanup and revitalization for cities and counties to use.
"It’s daunting, to say the least," Moody said about taking on such a costly and long-term project. "You have to be committed, and you really have to have a cheerleader who can drive the process along," he said.
Most former mill communities want to find available grants to fund expensive cleanups, studies and master plans for replacing abandoned mills.
"They must be creative. This isn't an overnight problem, and it won't be solved overnight,” Moody said.
The town created a plan to build a park with a greenspace at the site of Mill One, but when the economy tanked in 2008 the plans had to be put on hold.
The town’s prime location on the Catawba River may provide a lasting solution.
"We are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel," said Glinda Coleman, head of the Great Falls Hometown Association.
Duke Energy's ongoing re-licensing effort could open up the area to a boom in nature-based tourism.
"For a long time people thought, 'Oh, we'll get new industry to come back here,’ but that's just not going to happen," Coleman said.
Instead, part of the agreement with Duke Energy would open the Catawba to rafting company White Water Adventures, fishing and hiking trails. The state will also build a new state park on a series of islands on the river.
The effort could bring hundreds of thousands of tourist dollars into the area within five to 10 years. The river would boast class 4 and 5 rapids, and new boat ramps and better river access would be constructed.
"I think that if we work things right, we can actually get a good many people here," Coleman said.
Dana Greenleaf hasn't lost faith in the small Chester County town, despite losing his mill job more than 30 years ago.
"They called me into the manager's office and said, ‘Pack your things, we don't need ya,’" Greenleaf said.
He never expected the downturn the town would suffer and thought things would rebound much faster than they have. Still, he's optimistic about the future.
"We've picked up and kept moving anyway. Great Falls is still a great place to live," he said.
In late April, Channel 9 learned that Mill Three was donated back to the town of Great Falls by the man who owned it.
Now the city can begin exploring ways to fund a cleanup and possibly new development. As of now, only one of the three mills is still privately owned.
As nature slowly reclaims the abandoned mills, it's nature that some hope will bring the town to life again.
Cox Media Group
