Fieldcrest Mills architectural plans 1911-1979
- Size
- 24.5 linear feet (65 flat folders and 25 tubes)
- Call number
- MC 00350
The Fieldcrest Mills records primarily contain building plans, site plans, elevations, sections, details, structural and electrical systems drawings and engineering plans for Fieldcrest Mills. These plans are related to a variety of textile mill warehouses located in Leaksville, Spray, and later Eden, North Carolina.
Fieldcrest Mills was a Marshall Fields Company that produced an assortment of textiles including blankets, bedspreads, towels, bed sheets, bath accessories, bath rugs, rugs and furniture coverings; their warehouses were located in Draper, Leaksville and Spray, North Carolina. These three towns combined in 1967 to become Eden, North Carolina. The company changed in 1986 when Fieldcrest Mills merged with Cannon Mills of Kannapolis, North Carolina, becoming Fieldcrest Cannon, Inc. Then in 1997 the Pillowtex Corporation acquired the Fieldcrest Cannon Company.
Biographical/historical note
Benjamin Franklin Mebane first formed the company that became Fieldcrest Mills in 1893, in Spray, North Carolina. By 1905 he owned six mills in the area. Chicago retailer Marshall Field had helped to finance his business and when Benjamin Mebane had trouble repaying this debt Marshall Field took over Mebane's Spray Water Power and Land Co. By 1912 the takeover was complete and the company had become a subsidiary of Marshall Field and Co. Fieldcrest grew through the mid-1960s via a series of acquisitions and improvements. In 1979 profits began to slide and their hold on the market was not as strong as it had been. In 1986 Fieldcrest Mills acquired Cannon Mills, a textile mill company in Kannapolis, North Carolina. With that acquisition, Fieldcrest became Fieldcrest Cannon, Inc. Fieldcrest Cannon, however, continued to have financial difficulties. Pillowtex Corporation, a firm that specialized in pillows, sheets, and blankets, wanted to gain a way into the bath textile market and so, in 1997, bought Fieldcrest Cannon.
The Pillowtex Corporation gave this collection of plans to North Carolina State University Libraries. Pillowtex was founded in 1954 by John H. Silverthorne to manufacture bed pillows in Dallas, Texas. Throughout the company's history they acquired manufacturing plants all over the country; these acquisitions included plants in Atlanta, Chicago, Connecticut, Los Angeles, and eventually Fieldcrest Cannon in North Carolina. In September 1997, Pillowtex announced that it had agreed to acquire all of Fieldcrest Cannon. When it acquired Fieldcrest Cannon, Pillowtex took on a long-running labor dispute at the towel-maker's North Carolina factories. After a struggle dating back to the 1970s, the Union of Needletrades, Textile and Industrial Employees won the right to organize Fieldcrest's six plants in Kannapolis in 1999. In addition to this battle Pillowtex also put millions of dollars into updating Fieldcrest's computer system, but did not come up with a satisfactory result. Sales became depressed at the Fieldcrest Cannon division and starting with the second quarter of 1999, Pillowtex began to lose money. By the second quarter of 2000 they filed for bankruptcy. Although Pillowtex re-emerged in 2002 briefly, they filed again for the final time in 2003.
Scope/content
The Fieldcrest Mills architectural plans collection includes a wide array of plans, primarily done for Fieldcrest Mills, related to textile mill buildings in Spray and Leaksville, North Carolina. After 1967 Spray and Leaksville became Eden, North Carolina, so some of the plans show buildings there. Companies represented include, Fieldcrest Mills Inc., Marshall Field & Company, Grinnell Company, Fairfield Engineering Co., Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company, Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, Kalman Steel Corp., Babcock & Wilcox Company, Detroit Stoker Company, Robert & Company, Westbrook Elevator Manufacturer Co., Thread Mills Company, Easterby & Mumaw, Western Percipitation Corporation, Leaksville Lumber Co., Maryland Metal Co, and the General Sprinkler Corporation. Included in the collection are building plans, site plans, plat plans, elevations, sections, details, structural and electrical system plans, and engineering plans for various warehouses. In addition to buildings, also represented in these plans are wiring systems, boiler rooms, heating and cooling systems, storage layouts, circuits, drains, dye parts, jet oil burners, windows, doors, elevators, equipment layouts, conveyors, fans, motor pumps, boiler rooms, and partitions. These plans are in multiple formats: blueprints, diazos, tracing paper, paper, vellum and drafting film. Both ink and pencil is used on the linen and tracing paper. The dates of the plans range from 1911 to 1979.
Arrangement
This collection is organized as it was received.
Use of these materials
The nature of the NCSU Libraries' Special Collections means that copyright or other information about restrictions may be difficult or even impossible to determine despite reasonable efforts. The NCSU Libraries claims only physical ownership of most Special Collections materials.
The materials from our collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study, pursuant to U.S. Copyright law. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials. Any materials used for academic research or otherwise should be fully credited with the source.
This collection may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which North Carolina State University assumes no responsibility.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Fieldcrest Mills architectural plans, MC 00350, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC
Source of acquisition
Gift of Pillowtex Corporation, 2000, 2003 (Accession nos. 2000.0003, 2003.0020)
Processing information
Processed by Genya O'Gara, October 2008
Encoded by Genya O'Gara, October 2008
Ink on linen
Pencil on linen
Ink on linen
Ink and pencil on linen
Pencil on linen
Blueprints
Discolored blueprint
Blueprints, diazos and paper
Blueprint, heavily creased
Pencil on tracing paper
Ink on linen
Ink on linen
Ink and pencil on linen
Blueprints
Ink on linen
Papers, aged and browning
Linen
Tracing paper
Ink on tracing paper
Ink on tracing paper
Tracing paper
Blueprints
Blueprints
Blueprint
Blueprints
Blueprint
Ink on linen
Ink on linen
Blueprints, small
Blueprints
Blueprint
Blueprints
Blueprints
Ink on paper
Pencil on paper
Ink on linen
Pencil on tracing paper with grid
Pencil and ink on linen
Pencil on paper
Paper
Diazos and blueprints
2 diazos
Ink on linen and pencil on paper
Ink on linen
Blueprint, small
Ink on linen
Pencil on tracing paper
Blueprint
Small blueprints, approximately 8x10, stapled
Ink on paper
Drafting film
Pencil on tracing paper and ink on linen
Blueprints, some too faded to read
Diazo
Blueprints, stapled
Blueprints
Blueprints, some dates illegible
2 blueprints
Blueprint
Blueprints
Diazos
Ink on linen
Ink on linen
Pencil on tracing paper
Blueprint, very faded
Blueprints, some dates illegible
Blueprints, some undated
Blueprints, some faded and unreadable
Blueprints, some faded and undated
Blueprints
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Diazos
Blueprint
Blueprints
Pencil on tracing paper
Pencil on tracing paper
Pencil on linen
Blueprints
Blueprints
Blueprints
Blueprints
Blueprints
1 page
Blueprints, several undated
Blueprints
Sepias
Blueprints, many have no dates
Blueprints and diazos
Blueprints and diazos
Blueprints
Pencil on tracing papers and sepias
Blueprints
Blueprints, ripped and faded
Sepia and tracing paper
Pencil on tracing paper
Pencil on tracing paper
Blueprints and diazos
2 pages
Pencil on tracing paper
Pencil on tracing paper and pencil on sepia
Pencil on tracing paper and pencil on sepia
Blueprints, some too faded to decipher date or title
Blueprints
Pencil on tracing paper
Pencil on tracing paper
Blueprints
Blueprints
Pencil on sepia and tracing paper
Blueprints
Blueprints
Blueprints, stapled
Small blueprint
Blueprint
2 identical blueprints
Blueprint small tears and fading
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprints
Blueprints
Blueprints
Blueprint
Small blueprints
Small blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Drawn by T.R.Ray 1/24/64
Drawing pencil on tracing paper
Drawn by T.R.Ray
Drawing pencil on tracing paper
Drawn by R.I. Wilkerson, 2/23/62
Drawing, pencil on tracing paper
Drawn by R.I. Wilkerson 9/15/62
Drawing, pencil on tracing paper
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint, ripped
2 blueprints
Print on paper
Print on paper
Blueprint
Blueprints
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprints
Linen and vellum excellent condition
Blueprint
Blueprint
3 blueprints
Blueprint
Blueprints stapled together
Small blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprint
Blueprints and diazos
Blueprints
Blueprints, tearing and fading
Paper and blueprints
Paper and linen
Blueprints
Blueprints
Blueprints
Blueprints
Diazos
Blueprints, ripped
- Wilkerson, R. I.
- Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company
- Western Percipitation Corporation
- Pillowtex Corporation
- Maryland Metal Co.
- Marshall Field & Company
- Leaksville Lumber Co.
- Westbrook Elevator Manufacturer Company
- Thread Mills Company
- Robert & Company
- Ray, T. R.
- Fairfield Engineering Co.
- Fieldcrest Cannon Inc.
- Detroit Stoker Company
- Easterby & Mumaw
- Grinnell Company
- Kalman Steel Corp.
- Fieldcrest Mills Inc.
- General Sprinkler Corporation
- Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company
- Babcock & Wilcox Company
- Engineering drawings
- Eden (N.C.) -- Buildings, structures, etc.
- North Carolina -- History
- Spray (N.C.) -- Buildings, structures, etc.
- Leaksville (N.C.) -- Buildings, structures, etc.
- Architectural drawing -- North Carolina -- 20th century
- Buildings -- Specifications -- North Carolina
- Architecture
- Textile industry -- North Carolina
- Architectural drawings
- Blueprints
Access to the collection
This collection is open for research; access requires at least 48 hours advance notice. Because of the nature of certain archival formats, including digital and audio-visual materials, access to digital files may require additional advanced notice.
For more information contact us via mail, phone, or our web form.
Mailing address:
Special Collections Research Center
Box 7111
Raleigh, NC, 27695-7111
Phone: (919) 515-2273
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Fieldcrest Mills architectural plans, MC 00350, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC
Use of these materials
The nature of the NCSU Libraries' Special Collections means that copyright or other information about restrictions may be difficult or even impossible to determine despite reasonable efforts. The NCSU Libraries claims only physical ownership of most Special Collections materials.
The materials from our collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study, pursuant to U.S. Copyright law. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials. Any materials used for academic research or otherwise should be fully credited with the source.
This collection may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which North Carolina State University assumes no responsibility.