The Union Bleaching and Finishing Company began operations in 1903 as the second custom finishing company in S.C. and one of four original plants worldwide licensed to use the Sandfordizing Process to reduce shrinkage of cotton cloth. In 1922 it was re-chartered as Union Bleachery and, with a capacity of 2 million yards per week, became the largest finishing plant in the South. John White Arrington, who became company president in 1906, was key to the growth of both the plant and the surrounding mill village. The first 35 of 153 homes were built along Arrington and Stephenson Avenues for employees who came from surrounding rural sections and the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Mill owners provided a school, Baptist and Methodist churches, a pasture and barn for farm animals, and a community garden for workers and their families, and they also provided a school, church, and homes for the black community living near the Bleachery. In 1923 they added a community building with a gymnasium and park, employees played in the Textile Baseball and Basketball Leagues, and the village also had a nine-hole golf course with black-oiled sand greens. In 1937 Jess “Doc” Brown was hired as Recreational Director for the community, and in 1938 he founded and became editor of The Commentator, a weekly newspaper for the Bleachery community. Cone Mills acquired the mill and village in 1947, American Fast Print (U.S. Finishing) bought the mill in 1984, and operations continued until a major fire destroyed a large part of the plant in 2003.