Porterdale, Georgia, Cotton Rope Capital

Porterdale, a small city on the Yellow River in Newton County, was essentially a company town from birth. Mills here drew power from the river's shoals, and the town bears the name of mill owner Oliver S. Porter.

The Bibb Manufacturing Company built the main mill complex in eighteen ninety-nine, and by the early twentieth century the Porterdale mills were known for cotton rope. Around the mills grew a planned village of hundreds of bungalows and worker cottages, most of them still standing, which landed the entire Porterdale Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. It remains one of the best-preserved textile mill villages in Georgia.