Our Heritage: Glen Royall Mill Village … A Humble Century of Distinction

By Amy Pierce

Turning east onto one of three avenues off of North Main Street only a few blocks north of the Seminary campus, the newcomer to Wake Forest happens upon one of the historic gems of Wake County…” So begins the first paragraph of R. James Cox, Jr.’s A Common Thread – Life at Royall Mill and its Village, 1899-1996. As the only remaining intact mill village in Wake County outside Raleigh, Glen Royall Mill Village, according to Cox, “typifies the industrial villages of the American South which have all but disappeared in North Carolina.” 

In 1899, three graduates of Wake Forest College, Robert E. Royall, Thomas E. Holding, and William C. Powell, chose to invest in a textile mill to serve as an outlet for locally grown cotton. Incorporated in 1899 as Royall Cotton Mills, the structure was completed in 1900. Around this time, construction was finished on the first 30 clapboard houses built for the mill’s “operatives,” or workers. Built in the traditional hip roof style, all were owned by the company and rented to the workers for 25 cents per room per month. There was also a two-story brick commissary, at which no worker was allowed to go into debt beyond the next week’s wages. 

In these early years, the company also built a school for the workers’ children. In 1901, Glen Royall Baptist Church was begun and, in 1922, the Church of God was established. Over the next decade and a half, approximately 70 more houses were built (of which about 45 remain), most alternating along the streets between the conventional hip roof and cross-gable styles. In 1907, the neighborhood was incorporated as the town of Royall Mills, NC, a distinction predating by two years the incorporation of Wake Forest as the town of Wake Forest College.

Life in Mill Village was hard, with mill workers averaging about 60 hours a week. Every family by necessity had a vegetable garden; most raised animals for food. Self-contained as the area was with store, school, and churches, there was little reason for residents to leave the neighborhood, leading to little or no contact with the college community a few blocks away. Viewed as “common” by most Wake Foresters and referred to as “Mill Hillers” and “lint heads,” there couldn’t help but be tension between the two communities, according to Cox. “The neighborhood had a reputation for being a ‘rough’ place to be,” and though the occasional fight did occur, long-time resident Marlon Cole says the image of the area as rough was false. “It was those rare times that gave the whole neighborhood a bad name … The folks were hard working, honest, church-going people who just didn’t have a lot of money.” 

During its first two decades, the mill did well financially. And while life was filled with hard work for those who lived in Mill Village, plenty of fun and activity punctuated the years for young and old alike. Music, formal and informal, was a big part of daily life and the area boasted a neighborhood band. The swimming pond got plenty of use in summertime, as did a baseball field located where The Border restaurant now stands on North Main Street. Glen Royall Mills even sponsored an official company team. But as the twenties came to an end, times were about to change.

As Cox’s account states, “The thirties were not as kind to the Royall mill and its village as were the previous decades. During the Depression years, the company experienced the same financial difficulties that faced the nation.” In September of 1930, the mill’s Board of Directors passed a resolution that included: “keeping a daytime organization only…; rebate house rents until full time day work can be resumed…;” and “use company equipment to [move] unemployed from Mill Village before winter [so] they can find another abode…” As orders for goods fell, so did wages, and small strikes occurred in the decade’s midyears. 

The forties brought some relief, along with a decision by new mill management that would lead to a profound change, not only for the neighbors, but for the entire Wake Forest area: the sale of the mill houses to the workers. This decision led to a request that the Legislature repeal the town’s charter; in 1945, the town of Royall Mills was no more. Though space does not permit an account of the next 30 years of Glen Royall Mill Village history, suffice it to say that this one change led to others of great significance for the neighborhood and the town of Wake Forest. 

The Mill Village remains a thriving community and is still home to a number of elders who grew up there or worked in the mill. Nowadays, young folks are buying the fine old homes as they become available and raising another generation of youngsters in the historic area. A Montessori School sits at the corner of Mill and Chestnut where the community used to gather to get mail. And in an excellent example of adaptive reuse, both the mill and commissary have been renovated, together providing apartment living to more than 60 families and individuals. 

In 1991, the commissary was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. A century after its establishment in 1899, Glen Royall Mill Village became Wake Forest’s first National Register District, receiving formal recognition for its significance to the history of both Wake Forest and Wake County. In this Mill Village homeowner’s opinion, the designation is significant because it not only calls attention to the importance of particular structures and architecture, but also credits with overdue esteem a nearly forgotten people and way of life. If your interest has been piqued, then on your next walk up North Main Street, turn right onto Cedar and enjoy this historic gem. Consider learning more about the district’s rich history with a visit to the Wake Forest Public Library where you can read A Common Thread – Life at Royall Mill and its Village, 1899-1996, by R. James Cox, Jr. 

Amy Pierce lives in Wake Forest’s Mill Village where she is a writer, minister, and counselor in private practice.