Cannon Mills Site, North Carolina

Cannon Mills was one of the largest textile mills in the world, and an assertion of the industry’s move South, from New England, closer to the cotton fields, in the early 1900s. By 1915, Cannon Mills was the largest manufacturer of towels and sheets in the nation, if not the world, and this mill in Kannopolis was its principal location. The Cannon Mills Company continued its productivity for decades under the management of the Cannon family, and a million square foot towel distribution center was built here in 1962, and a similar-sized sheet distribution center followed in the 1970s. The company and its square mile of property was purchased in the 1980s, as production decreased, and eventually the milling operations ceased. Most of the mill buildings were demolished in 2006, and the site was redeveloped as the North Carolina Research Campus, which opened in 2008, to study food and agricultural science, and help revitalize the former mill city of Kannopolis. The research center is a public/private endeavor conceived by the owner of the property, David Murdock, a businessman based in Los Angeles, who also owns Dole Foods and the Hawaiian food company Castle & Cooke.