Leaksville Woolen Mills Homestead Plant records

The Homestead Mill was the Charlotte plant of the Leaksville Woolen Mills owned by the Morehead family. The Homestead plant was personally supervised by John Lindsay Morehead. One of Morehead's workbooks, containing the mill construction records, indicates that plans for Leaksville Woolen Mills #2 were laid August 1, 1919 in Motley, NC in the township of Paw Creek. The mill made blankets, and carried out the process from start to finish, processing raw wool, weaving, binding and packing the blankets for shipment. Homestead opened for operations in 1920, and it got its popular name (Homestead) from the nearby P & N Railroad stop which the railroad had named "Homestead" for no other reason than the name "sounded good. The mill and village stood on Rozzelle's Ferry Road. An immediately striking aspect of the village was the care that was taken in the planning and the landscaping of the complex, which was designed by landscape architect Earle Sumner Draper. The community was designed to have a village or self-contained atmosphere, which must have made it unique among the other mill complexes of Charlotte. The village was set off the road to the east of the factory, and at one time, 56 three and five room houses stood amid tall oaks and winding roads. Other facilities included a community store, a community building, a boarding house, a scout cabin, a baseball field, and tennis courts.