The Enterprise Mill is a historical residential and office complex along the

Augusta Canal The Augusta Canal is a historic canal located in Augusta, Georgia, United States. The canal is fed by the Savannah River and passes through three levels (approximately total) in suburban and urban Augusta before the water returns to the river a ...

Augusta, Georgia Augusta is a city on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The city lies directly across the Savannah River from North Augusta, South Carolina at the head of its navigable portion. Augusta, the third mos ...

. Enterprise is located at the corner of

Greene Street This is a list of notable streets in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. A B D E F G K M P R Numbered streets See also *List of roads in Baltimore County, Maryland References {{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Stree ...

and

15th Street 15th Street may refer to: * 15th Street station (SEPTA), an American rapid transit station in Philadelphia * 15th Street – Prospect Park (IND Culver Line), a local station on the IND Culver Line of the New York City Subway * Fifteenth Street, a ...

Revitalization

Enterprise Mill is one of the city's prime historic

landmark A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances. In modern-day use, the term can also be applied to smaller structures ...

s. In 1983, Graniteville Company shut down the facility and closed. During the mid and late 1980s, the city originally planned to demolish the aging building at the time, which lasted for 10 years, but city officials later wanted to redevelop the building. A major renovation took place in 1995 as part of the downtown redevelopment. The building remained vacant for another 3 years until in 1998, when developers re-purposed the building into offices and

lofts A loft is a building's upper storey or elevated area in a room directly under the roof (American usage), or just an attic: a storage space under the roof usually accessed by a ladder (primarily British usage). A loft apartment refers to large ...

. It is one of the perfect examples of redevelopment in a decaying urban area.

History

Enterprise Mill was developed by James L. Coleman in 1845 and the building opened in 1848 as a

flour mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separat ...

. Originally, Coleman wanted to build it on his

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

, but the city council of Augusta granted a fund to build a canal to supply power, which would ultimately be the creation of the Augusta Canal. Between 1872 and 1875, the Augusta Canal was enlarged and several

industrialist A business magnate, also known as an industrialist or tycoon, is a person who is a powerful entrepreneur and investor who controls, through personal enterprise ownership or a dominant shareholding position, a firm or industry whose goods or ser ...

s came to the area to build facilities around the canal. Much of the original mill, built in grey

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

brick, is still standing today, though the bulk of what is recognizable today as the Enterprise Mill was built in red brick in 1877. Like all the great mills of Augusta, it is built on the Augusta Canal. In 1923 the Graniteville Company acquired the mill and eventually added the large red sign bearing the company name atop the structure. The sign still stands today and is most noticeable at night when it glows bright red. Though for most of its existence the mill was used for various manufacturing ventures, in 1983 the mill ceased operations and closed its doors. For many years it was assumed that the structure would be demolished, but in the mid-1990s the Mill underwent a massive overhaul and was converted into apartments and retail and office spaces. The Enterprise Mill stands as today as an example of the revitalization of downtown Augusta that began in the 1990s.

References

External links

*
Augusta, Georgia, a National Park Service ''Discover Our Shared Heritage'' Travel Itinerary
* {{Coord, 33.47748, -81.9819, type:landmark_region:US-GA, display=title Augusta Canal National Heritage Area Buildings and structures in Augusta, Georgia Flour mills in the United States Grinding mills in Georgia (U.S. state) Historic American Engineering Record in Georgia (U.S. state) History of Augusta, Georgia Landmarks in Georgia (U.S. state)