Textile Mills & Migration
Post–Civil War mill villages reshaped surnames, addresses, and record sets in Spartanburg County.
After the Civil War, textile manufacturing drew workers into mill villages around Spartanburg. City directories, mill employment notes, church rolls, and mid-century census schedules often replace the “farm-to-farm” research pattern of earlier decades.
Track street addresses carefully—families moved between mill housing, and the same person may appear under slightly different name spellings in city directories versus census.