Talk:Dickeyville Historic District

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This is largely based on Sam McReady's Dickeyville.org page which is referenced in the external links. I, however, take full responsibility for any errors that may have been inadvertently introduced.

Confiscation of Wethered's Cotton Mill
Long time resident and historian Bill Schultheis spent countless hours researching Dickeyville and its history and never found any evidence that the Wethered's Mill was confiscated. The earliest record of this story I have seen comes from 3-5 papers written by college students in the 1920s. These papers are stored in a folder located in the Maryland Room of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Several of these student papers include the story of the Mill being confiscated when it was discovered that they were making grey cloth, but not a single one cites a source for this. Some of the student papers did cite many other pieces of information, although others did not cite anything.

Virginia Sandlass included this story in her history of Dickeyville, but she also failed to cite a source. Several more recent sources that include this story cite Sandlass' history. So there is no confirmation that this ever happened.

In the DVD Dickeyville Then and Now, Bill Schultheis presents one of his arguments against this story. It would have taken the workers a very long time to convert the mill from blue cloth to grey cloth. So much time that it would have been impossible for them to make blue in the day and do a covert run of grey in the evening, as the story suggests. You can see a clip of the video here: http://www.dickeyville.org/ad.html

Mshochet (talk) 15:59, 13 May 2011 (UTC)