When it was completed in 1897, the Louise Mill [2]was the largest cotton textile mill in Charlotte. Like most mills of the period, the owners also built a village for its workers and families. Hubert Smith Chadwick of Rhode Island, moved to Charlotte and formed the Charlotte Machinery Company  in 1892 and organized the establishment of the Louise Mill. (He named the mill after his wife, Blanche Louise Dodsworth whom Chadwick married in Charlotte in 1896.

The surrounding village The village contained 60 houses, in five rows, 12 to a row. Each house faces a street and had room for a garden. Some of the houses have four room while others had three rooms and each room had a fireplace and a closet.