Built in the 1920s and 1930s, the modest yet sturdy bungalows that Beacon Manufacturing Company provided for its blanket-factory workers, in Swannanoa, NC, survived for decades, up until Hurricane Helene ravaged Beacon Village, tearing off rooftops and flooding interiors. Even with the storm’s power, the cottages survived better than many buildings in Asheville.
“These were well-built structures, on a slab foundation, with thick shiplap siding on the exterior, braced framing on the inside, and heavy brick chimneys anchoring the homes,” observed TOH general contractor Tom Silva, when he first viewed the three Beacon Village houses that TOH TV is documenting during Season 47.
Beyond the construction details, however, the history of Beacon Village is important from a much bigger context: It is one of the best surviving examples in the country of an early 20th century company town.
History of Company Towns
From the 1880s-1930s, hundreds of communities were built and owned by corporations to house workers near their factories and mills. Creating an entire town made sense to the factory owners because it ensured a stable worker base that sometimes lasted for generations. Although some company towns were seen as too controlling, others thrived due to truly community-minded owners.
Company towns emerged in many industries and in locations spanning the country. The list includes textile mill towns in New England and the South, such as Lowell, MA, Greenville, SC, Columbus, GA, and Swannanoa, NC; manufacturing/industrial company towns in the North, such as Pullman, IL, Hershey, PA, and Kohler, WI; and logging towns in the West such as Eureka, CA, and Scotia, CA.
Many of the company towns surviving today are still active communities, with houses now privately owned; in some cases, the entire town has been designated a national landmark in recognition of the role company towns played in this country’s industrial and economic growth.
Here, a look at a few notable examples.
Beacon Village, Swannanoa, NC
The Beacon Manufacturing Company opened a mill in Swannanoa in 1924, after relocating from New Bedford, MA—one of the country’s original textile centers—in pursuit of less expensive labor and abundant natural resources. By the mid-1900s, Beacon had become the world’s largest blanket manufacturer, producing millions of colorful blankets and employing some 2,000 workers.
Beacon built hundreds of small frame houses near the mill, laid out on streets in a traditional grid pattern. Beacon Village grew into a self-contained town that included a school, churches, a company store, and recreational facilities.
Over the years, workers bought their houses from Beacon; indeed, one of the renovation projects that TOH TV is following during Season 47’s Carolina Comeback is owned by the great granddaughter (Miah) of a factory worker who originally rented the house from Beacon, then bought the house in the 1940s.
The Beacon Mill ceased operations in 2002, after nearly 80 years as the area’s largest employer. In 2003, a fire destroyed the mill, and the area sat neglected for years. However, in October 2025, the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority’s Tourism Product Development Fund awarded $4.5 million to fund development of parks on the land, which is right next to the streets lined with bungalows originally built by Beacon. Still inhabited, the community of Beacon Village lives on today.
Hershey, PA
In 1905, after perfecting a milk chocolate recipe, Milton S. Hershey built a chocolate manufacturing plant that grew into the world’s largest such plant and today produces chocolate products sold around the world. With a strong sense of moral responsibility, Hershey created an entire town for his employees. He purchased thousands of acres of farmland and built hundreds of houses – from modest cottages for factory workers to large brick houses for managers. Well built using good materials, the houses included front yards and gardens and were located along tree-lined streets. Hershey also created schools, a public library, a trolley system connecting the town and factory, and a large public amusement park called Hershey Park, which opened in 1906.
Many of the original houses built by the Hershey Chocolate Company in the early 1900s survive today and continue to be occupied. Although the Hershey Chocolate Company originally rented the houses to employees, they began to sell the homes in the 1940s and 1950s to encourage private ownership and reduce the community’s paternalistic origins – in essence to create a normal town versus a company town. The town of Hershey has grown over the years, and the streets with original company houses now form part of ordinary neighborhoods with a strong sense of history. Whether 20th century Craftsmen, Colonial Revival, or modest cottage, the houses are still set within lovely tree-lined streets.
Pullman, IL
After founding the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago in 1867 to produce well-appointed railroad sleeping cars, George Pullman purchased 4,000 acres south of Chicago and hired architects to design a factory and employee housing; he even created a brickyard to supply the materials for what he envisioned as an all-brick city.
With George Pullman wanting something aesthetically pleasing, the architect designed houses in the simple, yet elegant, Queen Anne style while including Romanesque arches for buildings that housed shops and services, according to the National Park Service, which today oversees Pullman National Historical Park. In addition to the streets lined with attractive brick row houses, parks and a lake were added as well, creating a beautiful town by the 1880s.
The houses originally were rented to Pullman employees, with George Pullman continuing to control the entire town’s appearance until his death in 1897. By that time, the company had become known for a divisive labor strike that overshadowed the town’s legacy. In 1907, the Pullman Company sold most of the houses, giving first option to residents. The Pullman Company stopped rail car production in the late 1960s and the entire town began to lose its identity. Today, the Pullman National Historical Park, established in 2015, offers a chance to see original brick worker’s houses dating from the 1880s as well as other landmarks that made up what is considered the first model, planned industrial community in the United States.
