But just downhill from Laurel Hill Cemetery, at the spot where the road takes a sharp turn and crosses Little Buffalo River, like the ruins of an ancient civilization reclaimed by nature, you can still see the remains of what was once a bustling little industrial village. Bricks piled here and there and the odd piece of metal protruding from the ground are all that remain of the Laurel Hill Cotton Mill.

 

Laurel Hill was once a village built on the Little Buffalo River. By the late 19th century, it is estimated that as many as 400 people lived there. Named for the abundant mountain laurel that grew in the area, by the late 19th century the town boasted a school, a post office, several sawmills, a spoke mill, a headen mill, a grist mill, and, of course, the massive cotton mill.

 

The cotton mill was a brick building, believed to have been built in the 1840s. A chancery sale for the property in 1869 described it as four stories, 80 by 40 feet, with 2,000 spindles, batting card, 56 looms, and “all machinery necessary for manufacturing four-quarter sheetings.” The property also included a six-room “cottage,” 1,800 acres and a tan yard with 60 vats.

 

During the Civil War, the mill is said to have produced material for Confederate uniforms until Federal occupation forced its closure. An 1875 blurb in the Pulaski ‘Citizen’ says that the mill produced “heavy sheeting, yarns, and bolting.”

 

In 1903, the owner decided to close the mill and open a new cotton mill in Arkansas, a situation which the Nashville ‘American’ described as “a great drawback to this community” and that it would throw “a great many out of employment.”

 

The paper was correct. When the mill whistle ceased, the village disappeared in short order. Today, all that remains of the bustling little town is a cemetery and a pile of bricks by the river.