Located in the historic Zachary House, the Textile Heritage Center opened to the public in October, 1993. Its purpose is two-fold: to anchor an entire historic mill village district here and to fill the urgent need for a regional center to study North Carolina's cotton mill culture.

Initiated by the Cooleemee Historical Association (CHA), the Textile Heritage Center now houses North Carolina's first museum dedicated to documenting and interpreting life in a Carolina cotton mill town. The Center's archives contain over 105 hours of video interviews, a photo collection of more than 600 images, and its files hold more than 400 documents---all pertaining to mill village history.

In the years since the CHA was founded in 1989, Cooleemee people have shown an astounding passion for preserving their past. Its Textile Heritage Center is entirely the product of volunteer labor and small, private donations. With members in over 700 households, hundreds of volunteers have staffed its annual Textile Heritage Festivals held the last Saturday every September. For the last three years much of the Association's energies have necessarily been directed toward fund raising, painting, driving nails, putting out mailings, and doing logistics. Attention is now turning back toward the pursuit of history: collecting, documenting and preserving the record of these proud Carolina cotton mill people.

As finishing touches are put on the museum, work has begun to fully utilize it as an educational facility with tours and programs for all ages. Several thousand people visit the Zachary-Holt House Museum each year.
 

It is an unfortunate fact that the study of this unique Southern sub-culture has, until quite recently, been given so little attention by scholars. Earlier academic work was frequently biased by misconception and lacked thorough foundation. Through systematic outreach to scholars, building ties to lay historians in mill villages throughout the Southeast, and through the Center's own in-depth study of the Cooleemee village, this institution will eventually become a central repository and magnet for on-going scholarship.

Our resident historian, Jim Rumley,  completed work on a 448 page book in 2001 titled Cooleemee: The Life and Time of a Mill Town. A systematic effort to enlarge the "Family Files," as well as a residential map identification from 1934, is being made, creating a critical data base on local mill people. A powerful computer for research is being sought to analyze census and other primary data.
 

The Cooleemee cotton mill village holds immense potential as a regionally significant historic site. With over 330 historic mill village houses and churches still standing and the mill building still intact, the town is a valuable resource on the banks of the S.Yadkin River. It is situated less than an hour's drive from both Charlotte and the Piedmont Triad.

To tap this potential, the Textile Heritage Center has entered into a long-range planning process which explores development of these treasures in conjunction with local citizens, county business and government leaders.

With the Zachary House serving as a Visitor Center, additional tourist attractions will include: an Outdoor Drama portraying the story of Carolina cotton mill people; a Mill Exhibit in the main mill building describing both the textile process and textile labor; a Shoals Historic Recreational Area on the river; a Cooleemee Journal Museum utilizing the pages of a small town newspaper to describe important events of this century, and a Dixie Tavern Museum in N. Cooleemee interpreting Carolina's "moonshining" history. Projects exploring mill village religious life as well as Cooleemee's small, but significant, African-American community are also being considered.

In the spring of 2005, Cooleemee will open its seond museum - the Mill Family Life Museum. The Textile Heritage Center has been called into existence by a single desire: that the lives of the thousands of Carolina mill people not be forgotten. Their legacy embraces values which are important to preserve and convey to today's young people and succeeding generations.

For more information you may write: C.H.A., P.O. Box 667, Cooleemee, North Carolina 27014, call (336) 284-6040 or visit Wednesday - Saturday 10:00 am - 4:00 pm.