Elsewhere on this site there are articles on the big “strike” of 1934, an event that, in Cliffside, lasted only one day but is remembered as a significant spike on the time-line of our town.
Concern about labor unrest beyond Cliffside caused management to shut down the mill for nearly a week. As usual, Cliffside’s resident reporter/columnist, F.C. “Skipper” Thompson, got the last word. The headline for his colorful, tongue-in-cheek dispatch to the Courier on September 11, 1934, was “Cliffside Mill Starts Up.”
Not Haywood
The rising sun over the hills of Carolina found a bantam rooster crowing from a National Guard bunk just outside the Cliffside Mills Bleachery here. This rooster, ‘Haywood’ by name, is the mascot of Company ‘H’, Waynesville, and he was named for the guardsmen’s home county. The boys rolled out for guard duty; Haywood came to attention and saluted by flipping his right ear with his foot; the wheels in the Cliffside plant started to turn, the first time since last Wednesday at 11:00 a. m.
This plant resumes operations with 700 loyal employees at their posts. As Mr. M. Hendrick, secretary and general manager, says, ‘there has never been any dissension among our people here.’
A version of this article appeared in the Jan-Feb 2008 issue of The Cliffside Chimes, newsletter of the Cliffside Historical Society.
