When
Highland Park Mill opened around 1904, it was one of Charlotte's first
mills designed for electric operation. The architect, Stuart Warren
Cramer, was a resident of the nearby Dilworth neighborhood.
Listed on the national
Register of Historic Places, Highland Park Mill is considered the best
example of mill design. It became one of the south's most well known mills
and served as the architectural model for the textile industry. The mill
remained in operation until 1969, when additions were made, windows were
bricked in, and clerestories were removed from the roofs. Cramer's
original machinery, including his pioneering efforts at air conditioning,
gave way to newer technology. New ancillary buildings were constructed
while old ones were demolished. After closing, all of the mill machinery
was sold to industrialists in South America and today only one small
section of overhead shafting (possibly part of Cramer's original layout)
survives. Since its closing, the complex has been used for storage.
Despite all the
changes, the Highland Park Mill is a place of exceptional architectural
significance to the city of Charlotte and to the South. Highland Park Mill
is the only surviving Charlotte building closely associated with Stuart
Cramer, the preeminent Southern textile architect of his day. Textiles
constituted the primary industry in the South for many decades. Cramer's
work not only had great impact on the region, but also helped the city of
Charlotte emerge as a regional center.
The factory is
believed to be the best documented example of the designer's work. Taken
together, Highland Park Mill's buildings and drawings provide an
extraordinarily detailed picture of state-of-the-art mill architecture at
the turn of the century. Because Cramer published detailed drawings, it is
likely that aspects of Highland Park Mill's architecture were copied
throughout the South and beyond.
Today, the North
Charlotte Highland Mill building and its tidy rows of mill houses still
stand solidly as a clear reminder of the industry which was almost solely
responsible for Charlotte's growth and prosperity in the late nineteenth
century and three-fourths of the twentieth: textile manufacturing.
