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April 13, 1999
Web posted at: 11:16 a.m. EDT (1516 GMT)

ATLANTA (CNN) -- A symbol of Atlanta's rebirth after the fiery devastation of the Civil War went up in flames Monday, an ironic turn of events in a neighborhood rebuilding after two decades of decline.

By the fall of 1864, only 400 structures were left standing in Atlanta -- remnants of the Civil War. What Confederate soldiers didn't destroy on their way out of the Georgia capital that September, Union soldiers destroyed on their way in.

Atlanta burned. And Atlanta rebuilt.

The Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills came to the city after the 1881 International Cotton Exposition was staged to lure New England textile mills to the South. The idea was to build a new economic base for a region once driven by agrarian slave-labor.

It worked. The Exposition Mill, the VanWinkle Gin and Machine Company, the Whittier Mill -- those and more joined the Fulton Mills with new jobs and a new direction for a city determined to recover from the devastation of war.

Just southeast of downtown, the Fulton Mills -- eventually nine buildings in all -- grew up next to the railroad and across the street from Atlanta's Oakland Cemetery. Around the mill, more than 2,500 workers -- many drawn by mill wages to Atlanta from mountain homes -- lived in simple frame and "shotgun" houses and cottages built by the mill owners.

Along with housing, the mill owners provided health care and day care. Developer George Adair named the area after his daughter, calling the six-block neighborhood "Pearl Park," but these days it's known simply as "Cabbagetown."

When the mill breathed its last in 1977, the mill workers stayed and searched for other jobs. The neighborhood languished for a while, before Cabbagetown Revitalization and Future Trust began renovating houses and providing assistance for the original residents.

In the '90s, Cabbagetown became a popular intown neighborhood. Some of the older residents moved out, sold their property for skyrocketing prices. And developers went to work on the old mill, turning it into loft apartments and condominiums.

Cabbagetown is now host to old-time mill workers and their children, urban pioneers, and more recent upscale transplants.

"Let's just say there's people of a different income level," said neighborhood organizer Peggy Williams. "There's tension, but we're all learning to work together."

Monday's fire affected everyone. It damaged at least a dozen homes in the historic neighborhood, and touched nearby apartment buildings as well. Neighbors brought out garden hoses to save as much as they could.

And Mill No. 1, the still-under-construction "Phase III" of the mill's conversion to loft apartments, was gutted. Phase II and the occupied Phase I of the mill complex were not damaged.

Longtime resident Joyce Brookshire, who used to stay at the mill day care center while her mother worked, said her mind raced while she watched the fire engulf the old building.

"I thought about all the sweat and tears and all those old pine floors, you know," she said. "I knew most of the people who worked in it from the 1950s."

"I can't imagine being here without it being there," she added.

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