The city of Columbus was founded in 1828 at the Falls of the Chattahoochee, which was the highest point of navigability on the Apalachicola/Chattahoochee river system. The Falls of the Chattahoochee generated water power for burgeoning mills, both textile and grist, as well as providing an excellent method for transporting raw materials to the mills, and for moving finished goods from the mills (along with bricks made from the local clay, and other products made in Columbus and the surrounding region). Later the river provided the hydropower to generate electricity for powering mills and for other uses. The city also served as an entrepôt for goods moving further up the river above the Falls, or to inland points in both Alabama and Georgia. According to Lynn Willoughby’s Flowing Through Time: A History of the Lower Chattahoochee Valley, the textile business in Columbus, Georgia began in the 1840s with the establishment of several mills along the river, including John H. Howard and Josephus Echols’s Coweta Falls Factory. Soon to follow were William Brooks’ Variety Mills, which operated both a saw-mill and a textile mill; John G. Winter’s Palace Mills which operated a grist mill and a machine shop. Winter also opened the Rock Island Paper Mill at about the same time. The Columbus Iron Foundry opened in 1847 and in 1853 reorganized as the Columbus Iron Works. The last two mills established before the Civil War were the Howard Factory and William H. Young’s Eagle Mill. Just before the War, Young bought the Howard Factory properties and merged its operations into the reorganized Eagle Manufacturing Company to become the second largest mill in Georgia with 200,000 spindles. The Eagle Manufacturing Company, along with most of the manufacturing core of the city, was burned during the closing days of the Civil War. It renamed itself the Eagle & Phenix Manufacturing Company to reflect it rebirth from the ashes of the war. By 1869 it had rebuilt its Mill #1 and in 1872 Mill #2 was built. The Boiler House and the Administration buildings were built in 1878. In 1885 Mill #1 had additions built on to it and in 1886 the Machine Shop was finished. The business went bankrupt in the 1896 and went into receivership. It was bought in 1898 by G. Gunby Jordan, with W.C. Bradley as a major investor, who served on the board of directors until 1915. The business emerged from bankruptcy with yet another name, the Eagle & Phenix Mills. Around 1904 the company incorporated the Girard Cotton Mills in Girard (later Phenix City), Alabama, as a separate business. A new textile processing operation, as well as a warehouse, were established. The records for the Alabama operations were kept separately in some cases and were jointly kept with the Eagle & Phenix Mills in others. The records were filed together during the processing of this collection. Records which include the Girard Mills are identified in the descriptions. This collection is processed as if it were one entity, even though it operated under several names. It was initially known as the Eagle Manufacturing Company (early 1850s-1866); then the Eagle and Phenix Manufacturing Company (1866-1898); and later the Eagle and Phenix Mills (1898-1947). From about 1904 through about 1935 it also operated a wholly owned subsidiary, the Girard Mills across the river in Girard, Alabama. In 1947 the company was bought by the Fairforest Company, which was itself a subsidiary of Reeves Brothers. In 1979 it was bought by Fieldcrest and finally closed its shortly afterwards. In 2003 the W.C. Bradley Company bought the remaining buildings and real estate of the Eagle & Phenix Mills. These properties were repurposed as luxury condos and other commercial and residential spaces.