This facility began in the 1830s and was known successively as James Shivers & Co., the Columbus Factory, the Columbus Manufacturing Co. and the Chattahoochee Falls Co. After the textile mill was burned at the end of the Civil War, it was rebuilt by Horace King. Throughout most of its existence the mill was locally known as Clapp’s Factory. Its relationship to the later Columbus Manufacturing Company founded by W. C. Bradley in 1899 is unknown.