For the better part of a century, some 500 people worked day and night at Lily Mill to produce sewing yarn marketed and sold primarily to housewives across the country as a premium material for all of their home projects. Among those on the mill roster was the late Earl Scruggs, who worked in the spinning, twisting, spooling and reeling areas before making his name as a musician.
The mill's work changed during World War II, when it was tapped to make yarn for the Army but went back to normal after the war ended.
Lily Mills was located in Shelby, on the edge of cotton country in the piedmont of North Carolina. It was founded in 1903 as the Lily Mill and Power Company by John Schenck. It was one mill of a growing industry in the area, and by the 1940s, there were twenty spinning mills in the Shelby area, some of which were also making products that were then marketed by Lily Mills.
The mill stopped shipping products in 1981, then closed down completely two years later as its owners merged the yarn making operation with dying facility in Spindale. The main mill building was torn down sometime in the '90s, but the plant distribution center and office are still standing today on South Dekalb Street
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