Columbus Manufacturing Company, Thirty-second Street & First Avenue, Columbus

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Textile Mill Significance The mill was built to use electric power from the North Highlands dam of the Columbus Power Company which was built at the same time. The turbines were wired to motors which turned a rope drive in the mill. The combination of power transmission media is a meter of the state of the art of electrical utilization in Conversion from line shafting and belting to individual electric motor drive which began in is not yet complete. Historians: J. B. Karfunkle John S. Lupold Barbara A.

Kimmelman It is understood that access to this material rests on the condition that should any of it be used in any form or by any'means, the author of such material and the Historic American Engineering Record of the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service at all times be given proper credit. Columbus Co.

HAER GA-29 (Page 2) Columbus Manufacturing Company The Columbus Manufacturing Company, now the West Point Pepperell Manufacturing Company, is located on North Highlands, feet south of the Columbus Mill of the Bibb Manufacturing Company of Macon, Georgia (photos 1 & 2), Construction of this mill was coincident with the development of the North Highlands water power and the building of the Bibb Mill (see The Bibb Company, HAER report Directors of the Bibb Company also were officers of the Columbus Power Company during that period. The great power available at the falls could be economically developed only if it all could be consumed. The Bibb/Columbus Power Company decided to sell the sub tantial horse- power developed which it could not utilize mechanically in its own plant.

Columbus Manufacturing built its plant to take advantage of this surplus power. V. B. Gordon, who organized the Columbus Manufacturing Company, became the first and largest power customer of the hydrodevelop- ment. Ground was broken for this plant 13 October while construction began at the dam and Bibb Mill sites; construction of the three were inter- dependent due to the nature of the power source (see HAER reports Bibb Company and Hydropower Development at Falls of the Chattahoochee). The Columbus Manufacturing Company was organized in with both local and outside capital involved. [1] Plans were drawn up for a spindle mill; these were revised in April, to a spindle operation.

The mill officially commenced operations on 4 July the first finished product appeared on the market place 1 August [2] The original mill was similar to that of the Bibb Company. It is four stories tall, 300 feet long (east-west) and 120 feet wide (see photo 3). On the north side is an annex which originally contained the motor rooms. Approximately 75 feet from the west end of the building was the 20-foot wide ropeway, or beltway, housing the rope drive system. This beltway was an open alleyway four stories high oriented parallel to the west side and it opened into the motor room [3] (see photos 4 & 5) . The original power distribution system to the Bibb mill was also a rope drive.

Power from the North Highland Dam was transmitted from turbines in the lower power house to the Bibb Mill by an American, or continuous, rope drive system. From there power was sent via the main shaft to the driving sheaves of another, vertical, American drive system which distri- buted power to each floor of the mill. [4] Power transmission to the Columbus Manufacturing Company differed only slightly; the differences offer insights into the state of the art of electrical power transmission. Electricity generated at the upper Columbus Co. HAER GA-29 (Page 3) power house, at the North Highlands Dam, was transmitted to the motor house at the Columbus Manufacturing Company at volts a.c.

Two large General Electric synchronous motors, one of 400 horsepower capacity and one of 600 horsepower capacity, stood in a line so as to turn a main shaft in the motor house. Each motor was attached to a separate induction starter motor which brought the big motors up to synchronous speed at 225 A 9-kilowatt, 125 volt dynamo which belted to the mainshaft provided field excitation for both synchronous motors. [5] The mainshaft drove large sheaves situated at the base of the beltway. The multiple ropes of the European rope system wrapped around the grooves of these driving sheaves. Receiving sheaves were located on each floor in such manner that ropes going to the first floor sheaves, second floor sheaves, etc., formed an increasing angle with the vertical.

That is, receiving sheaves on the first floor were on the north side of the floor; those on the second floor were near the center of the floor, those on the fourth floor were on the south side of that floor. Line shafting driven by the receiving sheaves was located on each floor both east and west of the ropeway. [6] In the European rope drive system, a number of endless rope loops travel between the main driving sheaves to the receiving sheaves of a floor. Thus if one of the ropes broke the remaining ropes can carry the load. There is no pulley device for tension control as there is in the American system; tension is provided by the weight of the rope. In the east end of the mill was extended 240 feet (see photos).

A similar arrangement of electric motor and rope drive powered the new addition. The new beltway was located between the older mill and the new section 17] (see Col.mfg photo 7). Comparing the power distribution systems of the Bibb Mill with this system, it is clear that the electricity to this mill from the upper power house on the dam served merely to replace the rope drive working between the Bibb Mill and the lower power house. The real advantage of electricity is realized when ropes, shafting, and belts are eliminated in favor of individual motor drive, a trend developing in the At Columbus Manufacturing electricity merely transmitted power to a spot at the mill where it was distributed mechanically.

Conversion to group drive and later individual drive, began in the original mill in The rope drives were gradually phased out through the and when the last of the rope drive mechanism was dismantled. Today one carding room is still powered with group drive; the rest of the mill equipment has individual motors. [8] The business history of the company has been characterized by early expansion and conservative development. The original mill had spindles, about more than originally planned. Before the expansion, the number of spindles was Today, the mills total Columbus Co. HAE.R GA-29 (Page 4) is just spindles; the addition did not expand the company's capacity beyond beyond its available market.

The only later expansion involved construction of weave sheds in for additional loom space (see photo 6). Conservatism is also revealed in the arrangement of textile machinery. In the original mill, the-'section west of the power beltway housed slashing, drawing, picking and spooling operations. Part of the beltway on floors 1 and 2 was weaving, carding was on the 3rd floor, and spinning on the This remains the arrangement today, with a few minor changes. Spinning and weaving is done in the addition. Making such few changes since acquisition in the late West Point Pepperell has retained the modest scale and market of the earlier owners, and continues to produce commercially successful industrial fabrics. Columbus Co. HAER GA-29 (Page 5) # Footnotes 1. Local directors of the company were F.

B. Gordon, W. C. Bradley, J. Rhodes Browne, and E. P. Dismukes - all local industrialists. Foreign capital included moeny from Wellington and Sears, who were selling agents for the mill; this was a typical arrangement. All outside capitalists were from Boston. 2. Oral interview with E. G. Hubbard, Plant Manager, conducted by John S. Lupold, 10 August 19 77. 3. Sanborn Insurance Map, Columbus, Georgia: Sheet 23 4. See HAER Report on Bibb Company, Columbus.Plant, 19 77. 5. "Plant of the Columbus Power Company," The Electrical World and Engineer 43 (23 January 6. Inspection of amps and from interview with Mr. Hubbard. 7. Sanborn Insurance Map, vol. 2, sheet Date of addition from Hubbard interview, verified date on map. The addition increased spindles to By there were spindles. 8.

Carding on this floor of the mill is still powered by line shafting and belts driven by electric motors hung from the roof (Interview with Mr. Hubbard). 9. 700 of these were Draper Automatic "E" Looms in Telephone interview with Donald Marshall, Hopewell-Draper Corporation. Spartanburg, conducted by John S. Lupold; also Hubbard Interview. 10. Hubbard Interview; Associated Factory Mutual Insurance map of West Point Co, Columbus, Ga., surveyed 27 May by D. B. Main, revised from Department Files 4 March 11. Hubbard Interview, for product line. Columbus Co. HAER GA-29 (Page 6) Bibliography Interviews Oral interview with E. G.-Hub-bard, Superintendent of the Columbus Plant of the West Point Pepperell Manufacturing Company, conducted by John S.

Lupold, 20 July Printed Sources "European Kope Driving Practice", Power Magazine, February, This article gives a good illustrated description of the typical European rope drive system. "Plant of the Columbus Power Co., Columbus, Georgia", Electrical World and Engineer 43 (23 January This gives a description of the original Bibb and Columbus Manufacturing rope drives, and the motor room of the latter company. Maps Sanborn Insurance Maps of Columbus for and sheet 23, volume 2, sheet 257 give lists of equipment in use and other useful information, West Point Manufacturing Company, Columbus, Georgia, Insurance Map of Associated Factory Manual Fire Insurance Companies, Norwood, Mass. serial 4 March from factory files.