Avondale Sylacauga plant to seal on 25 July

24 Jul '06

2 min read

After more than 160 years of providing textile jobs and services to citizens in four Southeastern states, Avondale Mills announced on May 22 2006 that it will close its doors on 25 July 2006.

The family-owned and privately held company had 4,000 employees, about half of those working in Sylacauga, Pell City, Rockford and Alexander City.

The company has already sold its plants in Rockford and Alexander City.

Avondale was a major producer of denim, khaki fabric and yarn for knitting having more than 7,000 employees worldwide and sales of US $900 million.

In the past, the Eva Jane plant, in Sylacauga was prosperous, employing between 700 and 1,000 people and had four 12-hour shifts operating seven days a week.

Plant made denim for the blue jean markets. The denim went to make jeans for Levi, Lee, Wrangler, Dickie, Carhartt, The Gap, Tommy Hiliger, Wal-Mart and others.

Nearly 1,400 people are losing their jobs in Sylacauga and Pell City.

A train wreck, coupled with increased foreign competition, resulted in the undoing of the company.

The train accident left nine people dead, six of them Avondale Mills's employees.

Now, arrangements have been made to sell equipments to countries like China and Honduras where a lot of denim operations takes place.

Eva Jane used approximately one million pounds of cotton each week, while producing 900,000 to one million yards of cloth.

At onetime, Avondale was one of the nation's largest producers of utility-wear fabrics, denim and sales yarn, and one of the largest consumers of cotton.

The closing of Avondale is going to hurt not just the employees but others as the cotton farms will be affected and those farmers will have to find another company to buy their cotton.

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