SYLACAUGA — Mount Vernon Mills has no intention of moving the trucking division it has purchased from Avondale Mills from Sylacauga.Roger Chastain, president of Mount Vernon Mills, based in Mauldin, S.C., said Friday afternoon the company will continue to run the trucking division from Sylacauga.
The division has more than 100 employees in its Sylacauga operations.
Chastain said the company plans to hire the trucking division workers and even add more drivers.
“Anyone interested should contact the division in Sylacauga,” he said.
Chastain said the trucking division was a good fit for Mount Vernon and his company is looking forward to working with the people in Sylacauga.
The purchase includes approximately 60 trucks and more than 350 trailers. The company has declined to say how much it paid for Avondale’s trucking division.
Chastain did say the purchase doubled the size of Mount Vernon’s trucking capabilities.
Avondale Mills Inc., based in Monroe, Ga., shut down its textile manufacturing operations July 25, after 161 years in business.
More than 1,200 workers lost their jobs in the company’s plants in Sylacauga and Pell City.
Avondale announced in late May it was closing its textile plants and related divisions in Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama. At that time, an expected 4,000 jobs would be lost.
In June, Avondale sold three manufacturing facilities in Alabama and South Carolina to Parkdale Mills Inc. of Gastonia, N.C., for $28 million. The Alabama plants are in Alexander City and Rockford and employ a total of about 400 people.
The company last Friday announced the sale of the trucking division in Sylacauga and its woodhead division in Graniteville, S.C. The woodhead division will be sold to a group of investors.
Stephen Felker Jr., Avondale manager of corporate development, made the announcement of the sale of the divisions July 28.
“We are very pleased to announce these transactions to preserve jobs that would have been lost and to help local economies that would have been hurt with plant shutdowns. We are continuing to negotiate other transactions to save even more jobs,” Felker said.
The two divisions combined are expected to save 200 jobs.
In January 2005, a train derailment and chlorine spill in Graniteville “caused irrevocable damage to Avondale’s core finishing facilities,” the company said. Avondale spent $140 million to try to save the facilities but was unable to recover from the damage and production losses caused by the derailment.
The lost business and debt became too much to bear for the company, and Avondale Mills ended up closing its doors after 161 years in the textile business last week.
Mount Vernon also has a history dating back to 1845. The early years of Mount Vernon provided at least one interesting historical footnote. Fabrics made by the company’s mill in Baltimore, Md., were sewn into tents used by the Union Army in the Civil War. At the same time, the Tallassee, Ala., facility, which became part of Mount Vernon in 1900, produced cloth for uniforms and carbine rifles for the Confederate Army.
