Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills Architectural Drawings

The architectural drawings in this collection document the design and construction of most of the major buildings of the Atlanta site of Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills, as well as its machinery and equipment. The collection also contains drawings of the housing in the Atlanta mill village, as well as some drawings from other Fulton Bag sites, including Dallas and New Orleans. SERIES 1 consists of maps of the Atlanta mill and factory buildings and site plans for the village, including maps of the Atlanta mill and factory buildings, mostly dating from the early stages of its history, and site maps of the mill village. SERIES 2 contains drawings of the buildings in the mill village, including drawings of various house plans. Most of the blueprints are drawings of floor plans, elevations, foundations, and structural details of the houses. SERIES 3, the largest of the series, consists of blueprints for most of the buildings that were constructed on the Atlanta site. Some of these drawings date back to the late nineteenth century. SERIES 4 includes designs of a variety of machinery and equipment for the Atlanta mill. SERIES 5 contains drawings from other Fulton Bag mills including those in Dallas, New Orleans, Denver and Minneapolis. SERIES 6 is made up of a few drawings of the personal residences of Jacob and Norman Elsas.

Architects whose names figure prominently in the drawings include Shand and Lafaye (Columbia, SC), Smith Whaley (Boston), and Lockwood Greene (Atlanta and Columbia), particularly for those dating from 1895 to about the second decade of the twentieth century. Later, the Atlanta architectural firm A.K. Adams is well represented.

For further details on each series and subseries, see the detailed description below.

SERIES 1, Subseries 1 consists of maps of the Atlanta mill and factory buildings, mostly dating from the early stages of its history. Among the most significant drawings in this small subseries is the selection of insurance maps, which show the layout of mill buildings and document the growth and development of the Atlanta mill during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Some of the insurance maps also show the location of the various functions (such as carding, spinning, and weaving) that took place on each floor of each of the factory buildings. A few blueprints of the mill site and plats of the railway and roads also form part of this subseries.

SERIES 1, Subseries 2 is mainly made up of site maps of the mill village. Some of these feature the entire village and factory site, while others focus on one or two of the numbered properties into which the village was divided. Some indicate the owners or occupants of the properties. Also part of this subseries are two significant text documents: The first is a 1927 list of rents and property valuations for the village properties; the second, dating from around 1920, lists owners or occupants of several Atlanta city blocks in the area directly south of the Fulton Bag mill. The maps in this subseries document especially well the layout of the village during the late 1910s and 1920s. For blueprints of house designs and other structures in the village, see Series 2.