Gaston County
Gastonia and Gaston County
Gaston County is where the Piedmont textile boom went furthest and where it broke hardest. Both halves of that story run through one enormous building on Franklin Boulevard.
The county and the name
Gaston County was formed in 1846 out of Lincoln County and named for William Gaston, who lived from 1778 to 1844. He was the first student to enroll at Georgetown, graduated first in his class at Princeton, sat in the United States House from 1813 to 1817, and was elected by the legislature to the Supreme Court of North Carolina. The early settlers here were Scots-Irish, German and English.
Before textiles the county was small self-sufficient farms and whiskey — by 1870 it had been nicknamed the Banner Corn Whiskey County of Carolina — with mining that produced gold, lime, sulfur, tin and iron.
A depot in 1873
Gastonia was founded in 1873 as a small railroad depot and incorporated in 1877, with about two hundred people and less than a square mile of land. It grew because two rail lines crossed there: the Atlanta and Charlotte Airline Railroad, which realigned through the site, and the Chester and Lenoir narrow gauge.
Dallas had been the county seat since 1846. A popular vote in 1909 moved it to Gastonia, a decision shaped by the Southern Railway running through the town, and the courthouse formally moved on January 1, 1911. Gastonia adopted the council-manager form of government in 1919.
The mills
The industrial transformation began between 1845 and 1848 with three cotton mills. Steam power arrived in the Gastonia area and employment climbed. Gaston County became one of the most concentrated textile manufacturing counties in the United States. You will often read that it had more mills than any other county in the nation; that specific superlative could not be verified for this article, so it is left as the general claim the sources do support.
Loray
Construction of the Loray Mill began in 1901, developed by John Love and George Gray and designed by the Boston engineering firm Lockwood, Greene and Company. The state marker essay says it was organized in 1900 with a million dollars of initial capital and that the finished building stood five stories and was reported at the time to be the largest factory under one roof in the world. Square footage figures vary between sources, partly because Manville-Jenckes bought it in 1921 and added a sixth floor and a basement. Its village had 625 houses by the Depression, also designed by Lockwood, Greene.
Firestone bought the mill in 1935 and made textiles for tires there. In 1993 the company moved most of its Gastonia operations to a new plant at Kings Mountain and the Loray plant closed. It was donated to Preservation North Carolina in 1998, listed on the National Register on October 19, 2001 with a boundary expansion in 2006, and sold to a developer in 2012 for conversion into 189 loft apartments and 80,000 square feet of commercial space. It is a National Register property, not a National Historic Landmark; the two are often confused.
The strike of 1929
By 1929 the mill employed more than 2,000 people, down from 3,500 two years earlier. The reduction came from the stretch-out: more machines and more tasks assigned to fewer workers. The National Textile Workers Union, a Communist-led union, targeted Loray for organizing that spring. The demands were a minimum weekly wage of twenty dollars, equal pay for women and children, an end to the stretch-out, and recognition.
A walkout began on March 30, 1929 and a general strike was called two days later. The National Guard was called out. Evicted strikers built a tent colony. Fred Beal was the principal organiser.
On June 7, 1929 police confronted guards at the tent colony. Gunfire wounded one worker and four officers, and Police Chief O. F. Aderholt died of his wounds the following day. Who fired first has never been established and was disputed at trial. His surname is spelled Aderholt in some official state sources and Aderholdt in others. Beal and fourteen strike leaders were tried; a mistrial was declared on September 9, 1929 after a juror suffered a breakdown; at a second trial Beal and seven co-defendants were convicted.
On September 14, 1929 Ella May Wiggins was killed. She was about twenty-nine, born in Sevierville, Tennessee, worked at the American Mill in Bessemer City for nine dollars a week and was supporting five children, having already lost two to malnutrition-related infections. She wrote strike ballads, the best known being “The Mill Mother’s Lament,” and a contemporary said her songs were better than a hundred speeches. She was shot while union members were traveling by truck to a rally, when an armed mob fired on the vehicle. Five Loray Mill employees were indicted about six weeks later. Despite more than fifty eyewitnesses, all were acquitted at a trial in Charlotte in March 1930.
A note on conflicting accounts
One NCpedia article describes police firing on workers’ vehicles that day. NCpedia’s own biography of Wiggins and the state marker essay both describe an armed mob of mill employees, and it was mill employees who were indicted. The latter account is better supported and is the one used here.
What came after
The union abandoned its organizing drive by late September 1929 and left. The state highway marker records the outcome in a sentence: a strike in 1929 at the Loray Mill left two dead and spurred opposition to labor unions statewide.
Gastonia today is a city of 80,411 at the 2020 census, in a county of 227,943. The Schiele Museum of Natural History, founded by Rudolph and Lily Schiele as the Gaston Museum of Natural History in 1960 and opened in July 1961 in a 1,500-square-foot building, took its present name in 1964. Gaston County sits across Mountain Island Lake from Mecklenburg, and the two counties share both a water supply and a good deal of daily traffic.
Two deaths in 1929, and what the record says
The Loray strike is the most contested episode in Southern labor history, and it is very easy to get wrong in either direction. This is what can actually be documented.
| The question | What the record supports |
|---|---|
| How the strike began | Workers walked out on March 30, 1929 and a general strike was called on April 1. The mill employed over 2,000 at the time, down from 3,500 in 1927 under the “stretch-out” — more machines and more tasks assigned to fewer people. |
| What was demanded | A minimum weekly wage of $20, equal pay for women and children, an end to the stretch-out, and recognition of the National Textile Workers Union. |
| Chief Aderholt | Shot on June 7, 1929 during a confrontation at the strikers’ tent colony and died of his wounds. Who fired first was disputed at trial and has never been established. State sources spell the name both Aderholt and Aderholdt. |
| The trials | A mistrial was declared on September 9, 1929 after a juror’s breakdown. At the second trial the organiser Fred Beal and seven co-defendants were convicted. There were no convictions for the assaults on union supporters. |
| Ella May Wiggins | A 29-year-old worker at the American Mill in Bessemer City, earning $9 a week and supporting five children, and the author of “The Mill Mother’s Lament”. She was shot on September 14, 1929 when an armed group fired on a truck carrying union members. Five Loray employees were indicted; despite more than fifty eyewitnesses, all were acquitted in March 1930. She was not killed by police, though one encyclopedia entry has been read that way. |
| Loray’s status today | Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 19, 2001, with a boundary expansion in 2006. It is not a National Historic Landmark and should not be called one. It was donated to Preservation North Carolina in 1998 and converted from 2012 into 189 loft apartments and 80,000 square feet of commercial space. |
One claim about Gaston County that this article does not make, because no authoritative source supports it: that the county had more textile mills than any other county in the nation. What is documented is that three cotton mills built between 1845 and 1848 founded the industry here, and that the county became one of the most concentrated textile manufacturing counties in the United States.
Frequently asked questions
When was Gastonia founded?
It was founded in 1873 as a small railroad depot of about two hundred people and incorporated in 1877.
Who was Gaston County named after?
William Gaston, a congressman and justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, who died in 1844, two years before the county was formed.
What was the Loray Mill strike?
A 1929 textile strike at the Loray Mill in Gastonia, organized by the Communist-led National Textile Workers Union over the stretch-out and wages. Two people died and the union left by the fall.
Who was Ella May Wiggins?
A mill worker and balladeer from Bessemer City, mother of five, shot and killed on September 14, 1929 when an armed mob fired on a truck carrying union members. Five Loray employees were indicted and all were acquitted.
Is the Loray Mill a National Historic Landmark?
No. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, from October 19, 2001. That is a different designation, and the two are often confused.
Sources for this article
Gaston County families
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This article is local history, offered for general interest. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Historical accounts are drawn from the sources listed above; where sources disagree, that is noted in the text. For advice about your own situation, speak with a licensed North Carolina attorney.