Poinsett Mill, on Gates Street above the Reedy River alongside the Southern Railway, was one of Greenville’s oldest cotton mills. It was established in 1893 as the Gates Desk Company, renovated in 1901 for use as a yarn mill, and re-chartered as Carolina Mills. Its owners built 123 homes in a village of about 200 people, where a small house on Birnie Street served as a church and school for 42 children. In 1916, with 26,457 spindles and 726 looms, it was reorganized as Poinsett Mill and named for South Carolina statesman Joel R. Poinsett, an early advocate of southern industry. Augustus W. Smith (1862-1934) became company president and led the mill’s expansion, including a separate office building, new streets, a company store, barbershop, café, and school. Poinsett Baptist Church was occupied in 1923 and later renovated as a gymnasium when a new sanctuary was dedicated in 1967; after workers and members moved from the village, the church was sold in 1971 to Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church. In 1928, Brandon, Woodruff, Renfrew, and Poinsett Mills merged to form Brandon Corporation. In 1929, Poinsett mill hands joined workers from Brandon in an eight-week strike against “the stretchout,” a management effort to increase workloads as wages declined, and the strike ended with minimal reforms. Abney Mills gained control in 1949, the mill closed in 1981, and the Reynolds Co., a producer of adhesives and coatings, acquired it in 1983.