Everett Jordan protected his mill with machine guns on the roof in the 1930s
Roger Gant remembers seeing machine guns atop Everett Jordan's mill in the 1930s. Jordan wanted to protect the mill from flying squadron attacks.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Roger Gant, July 17, 1987. Interview C-0127. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- ROGER GANT:
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My first exposure to Everett Jordan was back in the depression years when
the flying squadrons were coming to the textile mills in the south and
trying to vandalize them. The situation was so severe and dangerous that
my father put all five of us children in the car one day and drove us to
Saxapahaw to see machine guns sitting on the corners of the roof of that
mill behind sandbags to protect that mill from the vandalism from the
flying squadrons. It was a very dramatic situation which my father
recognized, and of course Everett did too. But that mill had been
threatened and he had called for help from the National Guard to protect
his property. That was an indication that the man believed in individual
rights and believed in protecting them. He wasn't going to let somebody
run over him. I didn't know him at that time but in my minds eye I can
still see that machine gun emplacement on the end of the mill closest to
the bridge.
- BEN BULLA:
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Was that in 1930 or 31?
- ROGER GANT:
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I don't remember; I was a little boy.
- BEN BULLA:
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When were you born?
- ROGER GANT:
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1924.