Construction of Lockhart Mill began in 1893 and was completed in 1894 under John C. Carey, aided by Charleston-area investors including Seth Milliken. As president, Carey expanded the textile operation by 1895 and oversaw construction of Lockhart Mill Number Two, built in 1905 just south of what became Lockhart Mill Number One with 40,000 spindles. By 1907, when Carey resigned, Lockhart Mills employed 750 operatives and had 51,000 spindles and 1,604 looms. During construction of the first mill, an abandoned canal was redirected and plugged to pass underneath the industrial complex, and the mills flourished by using its waterpower. By 1915, increased production required more waterpower, and the dam was enlarged. In 1920, construction began on the Lockhart Power Company south of the mill village, and a major canal extension project followed. Built at least in part by The Osgood Co., the canal or mill race was extended on the site of the Lockhart Railroad, separating a small southeastern section of town from the rest of the village while the railroad tracks were raised onto the new canal levees rather than removed. Following his grandfather Seth Milliken, Roger Milliken became a textile magnate, took over Milliken & Co. in 1947, and purchased Lockhart Mills in the 1950s. Milliken & Co. announced the mills' closure in 1994, and by 2002 the industrial site had been razed, leaving the smokestack as a remnant. After the Civil War, Carey used his experience as a railroad surveyor to establish a railroad to Lockhart in 1899, replacing the costly delivery of materials by oxcart and mule wagon over unimproved roads; the Lockhart Local carried passengers and goods as part of the Southern Railway until passenger service ended around 1950 and the line was fully abandoned and removed in 1978, with only the depot foundation remaining. At the Broad River, a new truss bridge built by Green & Woodbury in 1921 replaced the ferry at the Chester-Union county line, and around 1920 a new pedestrian bridge was also built from the eastern end of Mill Street to the mill because of the mill race expansion. In 1949, the truss bridge was replaced by a concrete and steel span named the J.V. Askew Memorial Bridge after a former town postmaster. In 1917, Lockhart Mills and Monarch Cotton Mills merged to form Monarch Mills, and although the Lockhart mill kept its name, workers there and at Monarch Cotton Mill in Union received the Monarch Mills Employee Handbook. In 1952, mill manager Chris Suber gave each Lockhart Mill worker a silver dollar as a tangible symbol of wages, and many workers either spent it on Christmas gifts at the company store through their children or kept it as a family keepsake.