Monticello

Monticello's Oldest Industry Closes

By John Harvey

The Bobbin Mill closed last week and with it went an industry that had become an institution in Monticello.

To the children of a bygone era, the "reject bobbins" were an almost indispensable part of our childhood. You could make so many thing with them - with a base, a screw-8in socket and a lamp shade you had a lamp for art class at school.

With a piece of green wood carved down to fit the hole in the bobbin, and a rubber band cut from an old inner tube, you could make a "pop gun" that would shoot a "buck-eye" or a small rubber ball twenty five or thirty feet.

One year, the students in art class used the "reject" bobbins to make dolls which they dressed in period costumes. Oh! There were so many things you could make from bobbins and in the beginning there were many rejects, until the men learned how to dry the wood and all the technicalities of making spools and bobbins.

As we grew older and studied the textile industry in school, we learned what the real use of the bobbins was, and that the plant in Monticello was one of the few in the United States making the bobbins and spools for the American textile industry. Many of us knew of the struggle waged by the owners and employees to get the industry on a firm footing.

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Harvey Powell wrote a short history of Jasper County in 1970, and in it he told the story of the Bobbin Mill. For those who are unfamiliar with it we will summarize the story:

In October, 1899, Bonner Jordan sold his furniture store in Monticello and went to Augusta, where he bought a small manufacturing plant making spools and bobbins. He returned to Monticello where the plant was set up on a lot near the railroad depot. He was joined by two of his cousins, Charles M. Jordan and s. S. "Mote" Thompson. The business was chartered as the Southern Spool and Bobbin Company with a capital of $10,000.

The first shipment of bobbins went out in 1900 to a cotton mill in Water Valley, Mississippi. Many of them were made from green unseasoned wood and shrinkage caused many of them to be rejected. At the end of the year, Bonner Jordan and Thompson withdrew and Charles H. Jordan continued along.

Several men in Macon became interested and a new company was formed in the fall of 1902 under the name of the Georgia Spool and Bobbin Company of Macon, with Charles H. Jordan as general manager. This company also met the financial difficulties and closed in 1905.

Charles Jordan returned to Monticello and in 1906 with family backing, started anew as the Jordan Manufacturing Company, not only making bobbins but also with an extensive lumber business at the plant. This time the technicalities of bobbin making had been mastered and the business was a success.

In 1929, Jordan Manufacturing Company became the Jordan Division of U.S. Bobbin and Shuttle company of Providence, R. I.. In 1939, because of reverses, U.S. Bobbin divested itself of Jordan division and the Jordan family came into complete control of the property. In 1940, Mr. Jordan then aged 69, turned the business over to his two sons, Leland K. and William Homer Jordan. In 1943 the Atlanta Belting Company purchased the Monticello plant and changed the name to the Monticello Bobbin Company. The Atlanta Belting Company has operated it ever since.

For many years the business had the distinction of being the only one of its type operated in the south. Now it is closed, and the building will be demolished.

FOR A PICTURE OF THE OLD BOBBIN MILL - CLICK HERE

Additional Comments:
Transcribed by Suzanne Forte (suzanneforte@bellsouth.net) April 2005, from copies of articles contained in the Monticello News. There articles were prepared by Mr.
John Harvey and published in this newspaper during the 1970's and 1980's time frame. Some were under the title "Jasper Reflections", others "Bicentennial Bits".
Permission has been granted by Mr. Harvey for use of these very valuable and informative articles.

Copies of articles provided by Benny Hawthorne.