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- Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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Shepperd Strudwick heads the new Bellevue Manufacturing Company in west Hillsborough
The Bellevue Manufacturing Company, Hillsborough's cotton mill in the west of the town, was incorporated in 1904 with Shepperd Strudwick as its first president, and he remained president until 1929. By 1911 the mill ran 5,000 spindles and 200 looms making ginghams.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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P. C. Collins buys the southern part of the future Bellevue mill site from J. W. Hooker
Before the Bellevue company was incorporated, P. C. Collins bought the south half of the mill site near the West Hillsborough depot from J. W. Hooker; a later hand added that he acted as the mill's agent. Collins, a shareholder, passed the land to the company in 1905.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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Mill engineer Richard C. Biberstein lays out the machinery for the Bellevue mill
The new company hired Richard C. Biberstein, a Charlotte mill designer trained in Massachusetts, to plan the arrangement of its machinery; his drawings run from 1905 to 1907. Fifteen years later he designed the mill's weaving room.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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Shepperd Strudwick buys Allen Ruffin's land north of the future Bellevue mill
Four years before the Bellevue mill was built, Strudwick acquired the tract north of the site from Ruffin, one of the Eno Cotton Mill's founders, probably to build company housing there.
People: Allen Jones Ruffin
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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Shepperd Strudwick builds the Bellevue cotton mill on South Nash Street
The Bellevue Manufacturing Company's mill went up in 1909 west of South Nash Street, a short way beyond the town line of the day, backed by local investors and staffed by people leaving farm work. By 1912 it ran 5,000 spindles and 200 narrow looms.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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The Bellevue Commercial Block is built as West Hillsborough's shopping street
Five one-story brick buildings with seven storefronts on South Nash Street near the old depot became the West End business district for the mill village and West Hillsborough. Over the years they held a drug store, the Cates brothers' general store with a branch post office, a barber, a dry cleaner, a cafe and a movie theater.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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The Bellevue mill superintendent's house is built on South Nash Street
The two-story house built for the mill superintendent, with corbelled brick chimneys, a canted bay and a wraparound porch, is the most decorative early house in the surveyed area and stands out beside the plain mill houses next to it.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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The Bellevue mill runs 5,000 spindles and 200 looms making dress ginghams
Three years after it opened, the Bellevue mill had 5,000 spindles and 200 narrow looms weaving dress ginghams 27 and 32 inches wide, sold through agents in New York and New Jersey.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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R. B. Mason's land west of the Bellevue mill is platted as the West Hill Property
To meet the need for workers' housing near the two mills, Mason's holdings were laid out in 1913 as a grid of roughly equal lots, bounded by the Bellevue mill village, Eno Street and the railroad, West Hill Street, and Mount Willing Road (later King Street). Most houses there went up from the 1920s to the 1940s, and the section beyond West Hill Avenue was platted in the 1930s.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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Eno Cotton Mill reports 150 women among its 500 workers
Reports from the years before the wartime changes count about 500 workers at Hillsborough's Eno Cotton Mill, 150 of them women and 50 children under 16, on a 60-hour week. The top average daily wage for women was $1.75 against $4.00 for men; at the smaller Bellevue mill nearby women's top average was $2.50.
Subject: Eno Mill · Bellevue Mill
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The Bellevue mill is also turning out cheviot cloth
By 1916 the Bellevue mill was weaving cheviot, a rough-finished cloth, alongside its ginghams.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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The Bellevue mill changes over from steam to electric power
The mill was built to run belt-driven machinery from a steam engine. By 1919 it ran partly on electricity, and by the mid-1920s it had changed over completely, with individual motors on the machines and the belt-way removed.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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The Bellevue company builds its mill village north of the mill
In the early 1920s, as it doubled the mill, the company set closely spaced houses along a narrow loop road reached from West King and South Nash streets, in three plain types; the one-and-a-half-story houses had two front doors so workers on different shifts could come and go separately. All the houses appear on the 1924 Sanborn map.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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The Bellevue mill is enlarged in 1920 and again in
Expansions in 1920 and 1923 were part of a decade of growth in which the mill more than doubled its spindles and looms, and they coincided with the building of much of its company housing.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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After its 1920s additions the Bellevue mill runs 10,740 spindles and 592 looms
The additions of the early 1920s more than doubled the mill's spindles and looms, and by 1926 the company's capital stock stood at $500,000. In 1919 it had still declared only its original $125,000.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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Shepperd Strudwick resigns as president of Bellevue, and L. E. Beard takes over
After twenty-five years as president, Shepperd Strudwick stepped down in 1929, the year its stock value fell from $500,000 to $419,600. L. E. Beard succeeded him and his partner Norfleet Webb as president and treasurer.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
- Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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Hesslein and Company buys the Belle-Vue mill, ending local ownership
Belle-Vue Manufacturing Company had been run from Hillsborough since 1904, lately under L. E. Beard. In 1945 Hesslein and Company bought it and spent over half a million dollars on new machinery and on baths for the mill village houses.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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The Bellevue mill employs 355 workers on two shifts
In 1953 the mill had 355 workers on two shifts, and the company still owned its mill village, whose houses now had indoor plumbing.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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The Bellevue company's stock is worth $219,600, well under half its 1926 value
Still listed under the Bellevue name in 1955, the company had stock valued at $219,600, with 14,712 spindles and 499 looms.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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The Bellevue mill village is platted and its houses sold to private owners
After the mill company had been sold by 1956, its village was surveyed into lots in 1958 so the houses could be sold. Unlike the Eno mill houses, which were carried off to new sites, the Bellevue houses stayed where they were, which is why the village keeps its original streets but has irregular lot lines.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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The Bellevue mill changes hands and runs as Hillsboro Mills
In the 1960s the mill was sold to investors from the Northeast, and trade directories list it as Hillsboro Mills.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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The open court in the middle of the Bellevue mill is roofed over for storage
For more storage, the owners roofed the space inside the U-shaped mill with open-web steel trusses running from the main mill to the weaving room and closed its east side with a new wall, removing the 1923 stair tower.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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Hillsborough makes its first annexations beyond the one-square-mile town
In 1966 the town began extending its limits past the square mile platted in 1754, first taking in homes on Cameron and Ruffin streets to the northeast and the Bellevue mill and its village to the west. Annexations have continued since, most of them under ten acres.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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The former Bellevue mill is sold again and runs as Falk Fibers and Fabrics
In the 1970s northeastern investors bought the mill again; directories list it as Falk, Fibers, and Fabrics, with a dyeing and finishing subsidiary at the same site.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
- Recent decades · 1976–2026
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Flynt Fabrics and Finishing closes the former Bellevue mill
The shutdown of the Flynt Fabrics and Finishing Company, successor to the Bellevue Manufacturing Company, in 2000 followed the Eno mill's 1984 closing and dealt Hillsborough a second economic blow. The mill buildings still stand between the town and West Hillsborough.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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The Bellevue mill joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Belle-Vue Manufacturing Company mill in West Hillsborough on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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The Bellevue Manufacturing Company is listed in the National Register
On August 28, 2003 the National Park Service listed the Bellevue Manufacturing Company in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
Subject: Bellevue Mill
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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 1, 2026.
