From Avalon to Eden: A Postcard Tour of Rockingham County

The history of Rockingham County, North Carolina, is inseparable from the history of its streams and the textile communities which gradually formed around them. From the mighty Mayo, the location of the ill-fated mill fortress of Avalon in the early 1900s, to the birth of sweet Eden along the calm Smith River in the late 1960s, the residents of Rockingham County entered the twentieth century with an economy fueled by water–hydro dams for cotton mills, gristmills, and lumber yards–and by the sweat of the people; men, women and children dedicated to working hand-in-hand in the Southern spirit of cooperation for the betterment of their neighborhoods and towns. From Avalon to Eden chronicles the tragedies and triumphs pertinent to the development of present-day Rockingham County as seen through the keen eyes of postcard photographers. These gentlemen, some employed by cotton mills, captured on film the optimism and the hardships, the architecture and the landscape of village life in Avalon, Stoneville, Mayodan, Madison, Wentworth, Reidsville, and Eden. From the portrait of doffers, children employed by the factories, sitting among the ash ruins of Avalon, to the festive panoramic of World War I survivors returning by train to Draper, Spray, and Leaksville (now Eden), this book offers historical insight–it is a grand road map through times treasured and a geography all but forgotten.