Cone Mills Corporation

In 1887 brothers Moses H. and Caesar Cone began investing in textile mills in North Carolina. In 1891 they incorporated the Cone Export & Commission Company in New Jersey to broker Southern textile products in the North. Within several years the broker was trading products from almost 90 percent of all Southern textile mill owners. Two years later they established Southern Finishing & Warehouse Company in Greensboro, North Carolina.

In 1895 the Cone brothers began creating their own textile mills for the production of denim. That year they built Proximity Cotton Mills in Greensboro, with Caesar Cone serving as the Proximity Manufacturing Company's president. Four years later they partnered with two men from South Carolina to launch a flannel manufacturer, Revolution Mills, in Greensboro. In 1905 the Cones built a new denim plant for Proximity Manufacturing in Greensboro, White Oak Mill. Over subsequent years the brothers acquired controlling shares of other textile operations and expanded their business to cover other fabrics and textile-related processes.

Mergers and reorganization

Revolution Mills and Proximity Manufacturing were merged to create the Cone Mills Corporation in 1948. Three years later, the corporation became publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. It also acquired Dwight Manufacturing of Alabama, a twill and drill producer. In 1977, the Environmental Protection Agency sued Cone Mills, accusing the firm of violating an earlier order by continuing to pollute a creek with residues from its Proximity mill in Greensboro. In response, Cone Mills shut the facility down and laid off 600 workers.

Decline and acquisition

The Cone Mills Corporation faced intense competition from foreign textile companies in the 1980s. In 1983, Western Pacific Industries attempted a hostile takeover of the firm after a deal to acquire shares from Caesar Cone II. At the time, the company had 16 plants. The deal was thwarted by a leveraged buyout by 47 members of management, after which the company made several cutbacks. Lawsuits related to the buyout lingered into the 1990s. Debt refinancing from the 1984 buyout continued as late as 1992, when the company offered shares to the public and obtained new loans.

The firm closed its operation at Salisbury, North Carolina, in 1999, citing additional overseas fabric imports and years of heavy losses. The Salisbury mill had been in business since 1888. In 2000, the Raytex plant at Marion, South Carolina, was closed, taking with it 200 jobs, as demand for comforters and bedspreads declined.

Weakened by foreign competition, lower consumption of denim, and higher material costs, the Cone Mills Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2003. Two of the company's three facilities in Rutherford County, North Carolina, were then shuttered, resulting in the loss of 625 jobs.