Photo of The Month – Nov 2005

View from Bunker Hill

Pictue contributor: Sheila Toney

It’s a glimpse you can catch only a few months of the year, in the winter when the leaves are gone. Sheila Toney made this nice shot in April, 2005, from Island Ford Road, the old street we used to call “Bunker Hill.” Just out of camera range, at the base of the trees and brush, lie the lazy, turgid waters of the millpond. We were struck by how much you can actually see in this photo: the Haynes Memorial Tower, the old Baptist church, the spire of the new Baptist church, the brick building that once was the filtering plant (far left), and the finishing plant, still displaying Cone Mills’ corporate identity. What’s not shown are the workers busily tearing down the older part of the mill beyond. Projecting above the finishing plant are the old mill’s smoke stack and rope tower. For many generations that old tower was the very symbol of Cliffside, and indeed of the cotton mill culture, for structures like it once stood over mills all over the South. There were hopes of preserving this tower, but that was not to be. It was gone before the leaves fell again.

About Sheila

A junior at Chase High this year, she’s the daughter of Robert and Susan Wilson Toney of Cliffside, and the granddaughter of Walter Toney. She’s on the Chase yearbook staff, and hopes to go to Western Carolina University and pursue a career in photography. (In the meantime, it seems to us, the Courier and other publications could not go wrong if they from time to time called on an enterprising, accomplished photographer like Sheila to cover events and scenes in lower Rutherford.)

Many of Sheila’s photos will appear in an upcoming gallery of the demolition of the old Mill.