Growing up in a “Mill Town” – Remembering the Princeton Hosiery Mill – Thanks to Mom and Dad

Princeton Hosiery Mill, Princeton, Ky

The Princeton Hosiery Mill dominated industry in the small Southern town of Princeton, Ky, known in the 50s and 60s as the “World’s Friendliest Town.” The massive building consumed two plus square blocks in an old brick building plus a dye house and a warehouse consuming another couple of acres. It was near the Illinois Central “roundtable” and next door to Harry’s IGA and just down the street from the Butler High School building and Times Leader newspaper.

My parents, Johnnie and Pauline Armstrong both worked there for more than 50-years. My Dad, who had obtained a GED at age 21 after marrying my Mother at age 16 was Head “Fixer” and my Mother a “knitter.” They worked long, hard hours in sweltering conditions in the summer and less than favorable conditions in the winter. This mill made socks and dyed them and sold them to various outlets. Because my parents could get discounts on “seconds,” socks that didn’t meet inspection, I wore white sock all my school life. You could identify a “mill kid” usually by their socks.

Mom and Dad worked with people with names Mr. Hearne, Miss Opal and Miss Auzie, our front door neighbor on White Street. Mom, when my Dad left home when I was age 13 rode with Miss Auzie to work when convenient to both or she walked the railroad track from our home to the mill. The track ran beside the mill and ended at the roundhouse.

Many of my friends’ parents worked at the mill. When I was in junior high school, that was grades 7 and 8, my parents would take me with them to the mill parking lot and I would join Susan and Anita in one of our parent’s cars and we would do some homework and tell stories or go to the store next to the lot and buy Tab and potato chips for a snack before school.

In the afternoons, when school was over I would walk the 2-miles back home. Some days unbeknownst to my parents I would do that using the RR track.

My parents really never wanted me to see inside the mill for some reason.

I was actually inside the big building only once in my entire life and that was on the evening of a high school dance at the local country club, we were not permitted to have dances on the campus of the school. I was 17-years old and trying to impress the daughter of one of the supervisors at Arvin Industries. Arvin’s had come to down to make radios and television sets and I really wanted my Dad to go to work there.

I went up the outside fire escape on the side of the building to trade my car keys for his. His 1964 Chevy was an automatic and I thought I had a better chance of my date sitting next to me as my ’59 Chevy had a 3-speed Hurst shifter in the floor and made sitting close difficult.

That evening when I went up to my Dad’s work. He quickly saw me, he was expecting me, and met me just inside the door to trade keys. I saw row after row of German knitting machines called “Komet” machines. The noise was deafening. Cotton fibers were flying in the air, later it would be revealed that such fibril would cause “white Lung” the counterpart to miners’ “black lung.” My Dad had lung cancer as one of his many ailments.

These machines had thousands of parts and my Dad was known to be able to fix them as well as anyone. He seemed embarrassed though that I had to see him there in his work shirt and pants. We exchanged keys and he quickly sent me on my way with the admonishment that I could keep the car until the morning and fill the tank.

I never saw where my Mother worked in all the years she was there. I picked up her many days and nights after I was older to take her home but she always met me outside the facility. She always said that “management” didn’t like worker’s kids coming into the building.

The Princeton Hosiery Mill was owned by the Harralson family. Mr. Grayson Harralson was the president, as I recall and many of his sons and family members worked there. I believe his son Don was second in command. One of his sons “Bubs” left the business to start his own successful vending and catering company.

I have fond memories of Mr. Bubs.

In the 1970s, when I was a fed at Land Between The Lakes he secured the contract to service our snack machines. One day, I happened to be in the kitchen at the Administrative HQs and Mr. Bubs was filling the machines. I introduced myself and he gave me a hearty and warm handshake and asked about my parents. I had met him and his wife Jane back in college when I was doing some work in the field of behavioral psychology. Mr. Bubs and Miss Jane were instrumental in founding “Bright Life Farms,” a residential facility for the handicapped in our county. We talked about those days and when I got ready to get back to work I told him how proud I was of his business venture and how successful he had been – VendRite. I also told him that one day I would be running my own business and he gave me two pieces of advice that day I always cherished.

Mr. Bubs told me that I would be successful because I had “fire in the belly” at whatever I did and that “once you work for yourself, you will never work for anyone else when you are ready just do it and let me know if I can ever help.” I hope I made him proud.

Don Harralson I believe still owns a farm across from mine out on Dripping Springs Road. I never knew Don or his Father. His Mother and Father lived in one of the few “mansions” in Princeton just East of the Times-Leader building. I would walk or ride by this huge old house many times as a kid, and even now as an adult, and wonder what it must be like to life in such a house on the “hill” although it was never actually on a the hill. I would accomplish living in a “house on the hill” in the 1980s when Kay and I lived in Hopkinsville and restored a 1900s two-story historic home. I got over that need yet enjoyed every minute of it.

My Uncle Don worked at the Hosiery Mill in the dye house for a few years before his independent side took him into farming. I believe that Aunt Doris also worked there for a number of years. Many of us Armstrongs are known for being truly independent and in need of our liberty and freedom. I am pretty sure I took after Uncle Don, as my Dad and Mom would literally have died at the mill probably given the opportunity.

At some point in the 1980s, the Hosiery Mill, which was also known as LeRoi, Inc., was sold to Munsingwear and then, as was typical of the era, that corporation would run it into the ground, sell the assets, take the tax write offs and close the mill.

Today, this behemoth of an industry sits old and graying yet with a red brick façade updated over the years since my folks worked there.

I can only imagine the environmental issues associated with this industry especially the dye house and the cleanup of the site would require enormous amounts of money, I suspect. I was told that someone owns it and wanted to turn it into apartments or condos.

There is a part of me that would like to see that happen while another part of me believes the ghosts of the old place would be disturbed by such an action.

When you grow up in small town America, there are there is the “right and wrong” sides of town I was always told. You have the doctors, lawyers and “Indian Chiefs” and usually a lot of Indians. I know this seems politically incorrect but stay with me here.

I knew my parents were “mill workers” and in the South that was a common thing, especially if you chose not to farm for a living. I know my parents were always pleased they had such jobs and can even remember my Dad getting so worried about the unions coming in and shutting down the plant that he would get, as my Mom would say, “a terrible case of the nerves, nearing a nervous breakdown.”

I also remember the looks some kids would give us mill children. We typically would hang out with the farm and rural kids. After, all we were not the children of the highest social class in town. However, there was a camaraderie that we “mill kids” had that others might not have experienced. We were the “in-betweens” I guess you would say and many of our parents were determined that we would go to college and better ourselves. My parents were adamant that I would not even “intern” at the mill, which I had suggested I could do.

No siree, so I went off and joined the newspaper business just down the street.

I hope in some small way I have made my parents proud. Yes, Mom and Dad I did get the college education you wanted. Yes, Dad I did become a “Doctor” albeit not the medical doctor you wanted me to be. Yes, Mom and Dad, my wife and I have worked hard and long hours to build a retirement and enjoy what years of life remain.

All this though, Mom and Dad, was because of the commitment you and so many of your friends and neighbors made to ensuring the Princeton Hosiery Mill was successful and all us “mill kids,” well, we thank you.