“Across the South, cotton mills were constructed at explosive rates. Fourteen mills
stood in South Carolina in 1880, even fewer than in 1860. But between 1895 and 1907,
sixty-one new textile mills were built and older ones were expanded and updated. By
1910, there were 167 cotton mills in South Carolina, a number second only to
Massachusetts.15 A key group of South Carolina mill developers were responsible for
much of this boom. These barons included Leroy Springs, John T. Woodside, and Lewis
W. Parker whose company eventually operated more than one million spindles in South
Carolina. Charleston native W.B. Smith Whaley, however, was South Carolina’s main
proponent of textile production and innovator in mill design.”