Thank you Helix Sleep for sponsoring! Click here helixsleep.com/properpeople to get 30% off an Elite or Luxe mattress (plus two FREE pillows!)- or take 25% off sitewide- during their Memorial Day Sale, which ends May 30th. If you miss this limited time offer, you can still get 20% off using my link! Offers subject to change. #helixsleep

My grandmother worked most of her life here, but in the newer section of the plant. I still live about two miles from here. Nearly the whole area worked at the plant up until the 80's, then the business started going overseas. You should check out whats left of the Clearwater Finishing plant down the road, only one building left.

man... the part about the canceled Christmas distributions was pretty sad. With each of these videos, I try to imagine what it was like before they shut down and that posting must have been like a sign that it was only a matter of time... thank you for your dedication to putting out quality content

At 18:20, those were not slots for each employee, those names were the names of all of the different mills in the Graniteville Company. Probably samples from each mill there for quality control. The lab was for quality control more so than R&D. The company was huge, there were like 8 different mills in the area that were all part of Graniteville Company. What you saw is just a very small part of a very large complex of mills throughout the Horse Creek Valley. Some of the mills have been reused and repurposed, some have been abandoned. I live about 10 miles from there, I remember the train crash well. Sadly, the mills were all on their way out of business before the crash ever happened, the crash just gave the final nail or excuse to go ahead and shutter it. Most of the equipment still there was stuff that was too old or worn out to be sold off. I have a large drill press in my shop that once upon a time was used in one of the Graniteville Mills repair shops.

In the lab they would be conducting tests on anything from dyes to fabric durability. The washing machine could have been used to run tests on contraction properties (how much it shrinks), as well as dye durability. At 13:30 looks like an abrasion tester and the device at 13:50 is used for testing yarn strength.

I grew up in NC next to a couple "mill towns." The movie Norma Ray was no exaggeration on how the employees were treated. Any employee could be replaced in a minute with another uneducated, unskilled laborer. I used to see them come on Fridays into the local grocery store I worked at, their 60-hour $90 paycheck in hand, filling their carts with the cheap brands of food and cigarettes the store sold. Often they'd be covered with a thin veil of lint from standing in front of the weaving machines all day. The lint sometimes cause "white lung," the equivalent of miners' black lungs. It was a dead-end job for most, never climbing the company ladder, never really making a dollar more than what it took to survive.

I manage an electric motor repair shop in Oregon. It is so cool to see all of the old electric motors. We still see some of these older motors for repair. We just finished changing out bearings on a US Motors, Pre-NEMA, 15HP electric motor from 1952. The design was an industrial art deco. It has been in service 72 years.

I really like the way factory buildings made the most of natural daylight.

17:00 I think all those machines were for sharpening the various blades and cutters used on the production machinery. Any time you needed to cut individual threads or pieces of fabric, you'd need some sort of cutting blade, maybe dozens for certain machines. And if you think about these machines rolling out hundreds or thousands of yards of fabric per day, times how ever many machines they had, that could be hundreds or thousands of blades to sharpen, and they probably had backups of everything, so every evening when the mill shut down for the day, some poor dude probably had to go around to every machine with a box of new blades and swap them all out and bring the dull ones back here for the entire process to repeat the next day.

The “power ball” equipment I believe was for stone washing the denim. You could see the stones used to tumble with the denim right below the machine.

I just hope we never get in another world war. We've shipped so much manufacturing overseas that I'd worry that we don't have the manufacturing infrastructure to gear up for war. Sad to see so many closed factories and dying industries in this country.

thats insane this place is still standing, and as a train enthusiast it really bothers me when they malfunction and cause devastating destruction and death. what a shame edit: as a matter of fact, I can't think of the top of my head a technology that is as old as railroads that is as widespread and have made only a few upgrades over the many generations they have existed, mainly from them being steam operated to diesel. they still operate the same from day one though, a huge engine moving tons of freight on fixed metal to metal tracks. pretty incredible if you ask me. and I appreciate the conversation and likes on my thread, y'all have a good one now!

The night of the trainwreck, I was doing late night grocery shopping with my spouse at a 24 hour Kroger in nearby Aiken, South Carolina (the Kroger has since moved, there's a T.J. Maxx there now). When we went to check out, the cashier told us that a helicopter had landed in the parking lot and taken off again. Later we found out that that specific parking lot was chosen as the initial emergency response command post, because it had the largest space of open asphalt just outside the initial 5 mile response radius. Even later still, because the job I worked at at the time sometimes dealt with hazmat chemicals, we got to sit through safety training courses that had detailed review of the emergency response to the Graniteville trainwreck, including dashcam footage and 911 dispatcher recordings from that night. I've even had to listen to the 911 call from one of the fatalities.

I can't imagine what it must have been like to be fully employed with a well-planned-out future one minute, and the next with no job, no money and no home. You can't help but wonder where those 1500 surviving employees went and what they did after that terrible mishap.

I bet Levi’s source their denim from that factory before they got cheap and thin. Jeans used to hold up for years and get super soft.

I visited this location back in 2001 on a customer visit. We used to supply woven fabric to them. It is sad to continue to see these old textile facilities shut down. They provided a good income to many people over the years.

Watching these videos makes me feel like I'm actually exploring an abandoned place and I enjoy every minute of it.

Omg this is where I’m from! I read the title before clicking and I was like “it’d be so cool if this is abt graniteville,” and I was so happy when I pressed play. I was a teenager working at dominos when this happened & some of my coworkers worked part time at the mill. It was a huge tragedy. 😢

THIS WAS EPIC!!....Truly a walk through time...WOW!!!....My mind wondered off to seeing people working, machines making noise, employees receiving holiday bonuses or hampers, Years and years of the same job, same place, but no one protested or complained because it paid the bills. Some of these factories were family run, and family oriented...quite the find!!...A gem for sure!!

9:30 that's literally the hardest one to turn and you wouldn't be able to if the lathe was brand new. You'd have to unlock the sled first. You should have tried literally anything else or the chuck. If you come across a lathe with a big gearbox on the drive, those levers will move, at least a bit. Try to get the chuck moving and get the gearbox into the lowest speed. Then keep turning the chuck and try to engage the sled with 1 of the two levers on there. One of them is a lock, the other one engages the drive.

A truly remarkable relic from history these sort of places need to be afforded protection because of their historical value alone

BTW from the videos with the camera sliding steady from one side to the other you can create perfect 3D (anaglyph) photos using two frames and a (free) software like StereoPhotoMaker, bringing out all the little surface details (reflections) and room atmosphere (particles/dust/mist/light rays).

A big cup of coffee on a Saturday morning and a new video from you guys. Could a day start any better?

The penalty box is a smoking booth. You had to sit in one to take a smoke break to prevent fires. Great place to gather gossip. The grinders are for buffing the rubber rollers used on just about everything from the card room to spinning.

I am from this area and vividly remember friends who live in the apartment complex up past the middle school having to be evacuation from the wreck. My friends have been all through the factory and I used to have some "souvenirs" they brought for me. Random test tubes and what not. Anyway, really cool to see an area I used to call home in a youtube video.

Sad to see this mill complex left to rot. It has so many features that could make it a unique multi use facility, from small work shops to dance and art spaces, fitness studios, etc. That millrace can also become a fantastic source of power once more with updated turbines and electrical equipment. Areas near the river could become restaurant and event areas with awesome views. So many possibilities if the right owners and investors can be found.

all those buffing / grinding wheels are to polish the spindles that receive the thread

Up in Randolph County, North Carolina, on the shores of the Deep River, is the crossroads of Coleridge and the remains of the Enterprise Mill. It’s a fascinating place. Built in 1882, it’s not quite as old or as big as the Granville Mill it was important in its day. One interesting difference, like the Granville Mill the Enterprise Mill was powered by water, however, while the mill has been closed for years its powerhouse is still working, now feeding power to the grid.

The generator/turbine is actually cooler than you guys realized. Back when this place was built, it would have been pre-electric machinery, meaning the turbine (or more likely, an earlier water wheel) probably would have originally been used to power a mechanical belt-drive system (or maybe even something earlier than that) for the machines along with a massive flywheel to keep it all moving. It wouldn't surprise me if some of the ducting and structure around the river was original, and just updated in places as needed to accommodate newer technology. Also, given that the pre-civil war south had not mechanized as quickly as the north during the industrial revolution (incidentally, also one of the reasons they lost the Civil War), it's quite possible this factory was one of the first of its kind in this part of the country, especially given its scale; it's placement on the river indicates it was built there specifically to take advantage of the power of water to operate machinery, as opposed to earlier factories that would have relied on more manually operated textile technology and wouldn't have necessarily needed to be built near running water.

There's just nothing romantic or beautiful about plastic. The metal here and the heyday of metal is just so pretty and more interesting. Maybe I'm more weird than I thought, but I love to see vintage metal items and NOT PLASTIC of our cheap modern life. Thank you for showing us.

Old Worthington air compressors. So cool to see. I always watch these videos hoping to see the air compressors from these old buildings but it seems like a lot of the time they remove them before closing down.

Have you all ever considered doing up follow up videos with people that worked at the locations you have visited? Seems like every videos there are a few people that either know someone or used to work at said location. Would be neat to see some videos of the former employees reliving their time at these places.

Just think if we just continued making stuff in America. No shipping raw material overseas and shipping finished stuff back

I was driving from Charlotte to Graniteville the morning of the accident. I was a service tech who visited the Townsend plant a few times a year. My boss called me, and had me turn around. I was about 30 miles from Graniteville. He had heard about the accident on local news in Charlotte. No one we knew was injured, but we never went back, and the plant closed soon after. It seemed like a great place to work, and a good company. They made the best denim cloth. On my first visit they gave me a tour of the plant. Huge bales of raw cotton came in on rail cars. Giant rolls of indigo blue denim was shipped out the other side. They used a lot of industrial automation, and most of the plant was air conditioned. I worked at several industrial facilities (still do) and this was the nicest.

Amazing place. Been following you guys since 8 years now. In my opinion it is very cool that your videos still have the same style and the same intro music 😎👍

I have to say this channel has been my absolute favourite by such a big margin. I’m so happy that you guys are keeping it going. I hope you never ever stop making these videos!

Googling the history of the area, apparently they built up a town, and little houses for the mill workers. Sure was a different time to be alive. Love your videos!

Out of everyone that does abandoned videos, you guys do them the best!!!!

Weirddd I can see the plant from my window, also drove by and saw you filming. Good stuff. I’ll be watching your videos from here on out. 👍🏼

Great video, as always. The "powerball" bit made me laugh 😂

The decay of what made our country great

Echoes of our past. Awesome and creepy at the same time!

We live not very far from a railroad. This is the house I grew up in and thankfully during the time its been here from about 1954, no train derailments. And yes, they do ship chemicals sometimes in this line through a bedroom community. About 30 years ago, I heard the dreaded signal of what my Father called the tied down horn and screeching of brakes. A continuous blast of the horn. The engineer had seen a body on the tracks. Someone was passed out drunk, and sadly, he in no way he could have stopped.

Loved the music that accompanied the video.

I’ve been following y’all for a while and glad to see you in my area! I live in Graniteville and work at Leavelle McCampbell Middle. Our old building I taught in for 3 years is right next to this

thanks for coveringg the textle mills. such a huge part of americas past

Y’all are right down the road from where I live I’m in Augusta Ga we have a lot of old abandoned buildings that need to be explored !!

The machine shop is to make replacement parts for the machinery since the company that made the equipment is probably long gone. The stations you were looking at were probably for sharpening cutting blades used in the machinery, these blades would need constant maintenance against wear. The buildings were probably built around the machinery which makes replacement even more expensive vs. fabricating parts as needed to repair the existing equipment. I used to do a lot of work at the old St. Regis paper mill here and they also had their own machine shop and would fabricate replacement parts for the machines that dated back to the early 40's when the plant was built. I remember on one trip they were fabricating a new shaft for one of the machines on a lathe that was at least twice as large as the ones you were looking at.

It’s a little weird to watch this having seen the place when it was still in operation - but also neat to see inside, which is something I never got a chance to do when I lived there.

Awesome video as always Guys. Y’all really show just how amazing each place is in every one of y’all’s videos.

I loved the mini hydro electric facility

I love environments like these. Beautiful photography, as always.

The cupola I've always heard pronounced as "Q PA LO". My uncle was a conductor for Burlington-Northern and rode many miles if the cupola on the caboose. Edit: The grinders are cylinder grinders and are a highly accurate machine. They can grind a hardened cylinder and hold a .0001 inch tolerance. Most were probably used to regrind the rollers on the machines. They were used back before the lathes today were so accurate. They are still used when a non-directional surface is required.

You can really get a scale for the size of this place by the huge maintenance shops to service the complex. Looks like they made everything in-house. Those were some huge lathes, and that band saw was massive.

I was part of the team that computerized the Gregg dye mill, it was the state of art at the time Graniteville Company invested several million dollars in the computerizing of this mill. We control almost every machine in the mill, from the cloth unloading dock to the shipping dock. I was the assistant supervisor in the Gregg instrumentation shop 1983 - 84. Now live in Florida.

There are so many people in steam engine clubs that would really flip over the steam engines in the basement . The stone work of the buildings could be repurposed. Nice tour guys be safe.

As I read about the accident, chlorine corrodes metals, especially iron and copper, and other materials. So affected machinery, electrical installations etc. were physically damaged. Even the cross on the steeple of the church corroded.

these guys make the most amazing videos i have ever seen. i love the sections with discriptions with historicle facts, and the section with no verbage just that mesmorizing music. i spell light crap

This is my hometown, this has truly been an amazing thing to see as I have drove by this mill for years and many of my family Worked there.

15:07 I think that might be a thing for making stonewashed denim. You'd throw the denim in there with a bunch of those ceramic lumps down below and it would age the fabric. That looks pretty small, so maybe it was just for doing samples before they put it in a full sized industrial stonewashing machine.

Fantastic........It has been awhile since i have been in a Textile mill....My Dad and Mom both worked in one many years ago..and i would "visit" them after school....and surprisingly , the Mill is still in production today....one of the very few left in New England..........thanks for the explore.....

Also that saw is used to cut long bar stock into length pieces to be ran on the lathes and or the mills! I love machines and machining it is my passsion!!

09:50 Edward L. McGowan (1920-2004) was the longest serving labor commissioner in SC state history. He was also a WWII Veteran. He served as Commissioner from 1971 until 1989, so that sign is at least that old. I wish he was still alive, I could have liked to have told him that his sign still stands to this day. RIP good sir.

man its so cool yall are this big now, i remember when yall had your first video on this brand new kinda unique looking channel with its own vibe and style, i love that your still doing this shit man great ya got this far already

James McMurtrie said it best in one of his songs years ago……… “That big ol' building was the textile mill It fed our kids and it paid our bills But they turned us out and they closed the doors We can't make it here anymore See all those pallets piled up on the loading dock They're just gonna set there till they rot Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to pack Just busted concrete and rusted tracks…”

Thats just one city away from my home town of Aiken SC. When I was growing up in the 60's I noticed that many of the streams around that ares were always blue from the dumped indigo. And I wasn't living there when the chlorine spill happened but I still had family and friends in the area. I wanted so badly to get investors to buy the Granville plant and make it a E-waste processing plant.

Another great video. It's fun to see these old factories and think of the people who used to work there.

The room with the mini lathes with grinders on the carriages was probably where they fabricated rollers for the textile feeding/ spooling machines on the main floor. You can see the raw materials (thick wall plastic tubing) on the shelves on the side of the room. They probably had to make their own replacement rollers (and other parts in the main machine shop) because the machines were so old and obsolete that premade replacement parts were no longer available. That mightve played heavily into the decision to completely shut down after the train crash.

I grew up in Aiken. It was a very tragic accident. My son did a science fair experiment about the effects of chlorine and the best ways to clean up the metal that is in those buildings. The damage to those buildings was horrific.

Wonder how far into the future the complex would have stayed operational had the railway accident not occurred. 2006 was the beginning of some hard times, and if this company had survived them, it may have still had another 50+ years left in it. The company kept using their old machinery, upgrading it instead of replacing it, and some of them could still be maintained and used indefinitely.

That machine you called the powerball thing is a denim stone washer. The ceramic stones were on the floor under it.

There's something particular about old mill buildings to me, in part because I spent one summer as the night watchman at an old and mostly empty mill building while I was in college.

There seems to be so many derailments carrying toxic substances, East Palestine being just one in the last 12 months, health and safety definitely needs a look at!

This is by far the most interesting back story I’ve heard from your guys‘ places you’ve gone

An Outstanding Urbex Video, I especially liked the bathroom, beautiful decay, wow, Happy Trails y’all !

8:51. Oliver brand Drill bit Sharpener.

Your channel always great a quiet Saturday afternoon-props to you on your fantastic work! Seeing stuff like this is really fascinating! Textile something not a lot of places cover :)

what a cool video!!! I feel like you only scratched the surface of what that place had in store!

So much history out there… waiting to be demolished. Thanks for documenting this.. very cool! We’ve lost so much of the historical things in our town. It’s a shame. “Progress”.. yeah well,don’t forget where ya came from…….

I wish everyone could have seen the mill and the Town of Graniteville in its heyday. Wonderful town to grow up in.

As a person who used to live near Graniteville, I think with a bit of restoration these mills can be back up and running within 1-5 years

Norfolk Southern strikes again 🎳

My mum ran a textile lab, the factory made material use in side shoes and for wound dressing. She had to test many deferent things from wear to dye longevity. She also had to come up with new names for different colours the factory made. So my sister and myself have various colours with our names in them. She saw one of the lab staff coming in to work late one morning due to bad weather, she was wearing a red hat and mum was picking a colour name and landed on Annshat red as it was Ann coming in late

As someone who was born and raised in South Carolina never heard of this place! Thank you!!

This was interesting. I love seeing old factories like this frozen in time.

Thank you for the tour of this amazing bando!

wow guys another great film so good to see . you are masters of your craft

I know you guys are probably been super super busy but I do miss the longer videos just like it was back in the day thank you again to both of you guys subscribers since 2016

5:21 easily one of the coolest things you guys have ever gotten to explore!

8:53 - Looks like a drill bit sharpener. Really large drills, though. But I dont quite see why they would have that there. But it seems like something to sharpen tools.

16:00 In the earlier lab, they made dyes. In this toolroom, they made dies.

Another super cool episode. I can only imagine how busy and noisy and full of life that place must have been like when there was full employment going on there. When they stop handing out hams or turkeys for Christmas... be ready because the times are changing. Sad that we have lost entire industries that provided jobs for so many because of the greed of going off shore to cheaper labor and less or no regulations. I was a little worried for you guys walking on that rotten wood, glad you didn't fall through.

u guys r so professional, it blows my mind

My a lot of my family , aunts uncles, grandmother and grandfather worked there. The train was just the last straw it had already closed by then. The chlorine gas caused everything to rust and decay faster.

Textile plants all had washers to test tensile strength of the goods they were making. The more washings textile goods endured the better the product. It was used as a selling point to end users.

7:36, 11:18 and 11:57, 14:53, 15:33 and 15:41 and 15:54... I could keep going, but my point here is, you lads are incredible at capturing textures in a very specific way. You two capture literally everything I love about nearly untouched places. And the level of peace you generally find in a place like this.... Would you agree it is unmatched?

The factory would have been open with thousands of staff members strong these days if the railroad tragedy weren't befallin'. It is Milan in the Carolinas.

Excellent content!. Keep up the terrific hard work for us!

loved the 5 minute opening sponsorship plug, awesome

We'll get that textile mill back, what's broken once can be fixed again.