Fred Mattox, 89, was the last person to leave the former Darlington Manufacturing Co. cotton mill when it shut down in 1956 because he was the chief electrician charged with shutting off the power.
And his old office at the back of the 240,000-square-foot building was the first to be torn down when demolition of the mill began in earnest last month. It is being demolished because of contamination under the 118-year-old brick structure.
“I went by there the other day and I just cried,” Mattox said Friday. “It tore my insides up. They busted my office up first because it was the easiest to get to. It was built on the back of the machine shop.”
Mattox worked at the mill for 18 years. It closed abruptly when workers narrowly voted to be represented by a union.
Mattox fought against the union. He said he wasn’t afraid to express his opinions at union meetings.
“I got beat up at one of the meetings, but that didn’t stop me,” he said in a 2004 interview.
But a flood of memories came back as Mattox saw the mill coming down.
“I’m the only one left of the key personnel,” he said. “They made me one of the key personnel because I was the chief electrician. And if I’ve got anything to do with it, I’m going to stay around.”
Mattox also has 60 silver dollars he was paid Dec. 1, 1950. It was called a Silver Dollar Payroll and all employees of the mill were paid in silver dollars. The silver dollars are locked securely in a safe deposit box at a local bank.
Although the four-story mill has been vacant for years, another business, Pyramid Electric Co., began operations there in 1958. It was last owned by Nytronics Components Group Inc.
S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control spokesman Adam Myrick said the agency has known about some problems with the site since the early 1990s.
“These sites are very common in this part of the country,” he said. “A lot of the work that was done and the contamination that was done took place before environmental laws were enacted.”
Myrick said the contamination is mainly in the soil.
“The only way to get in and take care of it was to tear the building down,” he said. “That’s why we recommended tearing it down. The land owners (a private corporation) obviously wanted to go that way as well.”
Among those seeking a memento of the building last week was Jo Martin, a former Nytronics’ employee. She asked for several bricks. She plans to have Nytronics imprinted on the bricks.
“I worked there for around 30 years,” she said. “I started out training people in the industrial department and was a human resources manager when it closed. This place holds a lot of memories.”
John Matthews, an employee of R.E. Goodson Construction Co., said many people have come by asking for souvenirs. He said the company is hauling off material to a landfill in Lee County.
“We started work June 23,” Jim Sobieraj, the project director, said. “We expect to be through in September.”
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