By Danny Crownover
Back in 1950, H.W. Riddle, 73-year-old contractor, a resident of Gadsden for 63 years, saw many changes in the city since he first came here a raw country boy.
He believed that the greatest has been in the cotton mills of Dwight Manufacturing Company where he got his first job.
Riddle came here from Arab, a thriving and prosperous little town on Brindley Mountain, Marshall County, looking for work.
He was just starting out as a young man on his own and went to the Dwight plant to see his brother who had a job there.
A foreman saw him and put him to work sewing heads on bales which contained cloth. He did that work for two or three weeks and then was transferred to the department that stenciled the brands and grades of cloths on each bolt.
He next stamped the bales and all this time was paid 65 cents a day, the prevailing wage during panic times.
A Mr. Pettigrew was foreman of the department in which he was employed. C.S. Wilkerson, who later became agent or general manager, was then foreman of the weaving room. Charles W. Moody was superintendent and he was the father of Charles W. Moody, Jr., also later a superintendent.
Mr. Riddle did not remain with Dwight very long and he has not been in the mill since the time he was employed in it, until 1950.
He saw nobody who was an operative while he was stenciling bales of cloth. He recalls that Mr. Moody was very popular with the help and that he knew his business.
All of the officers he came in contact with were fine and considerate but the change that impressed him most was in machinery and the type of production.
He said that “There is not a single piece of machinery in that mill that was there 53 years ago, [1900] ” he said,” and I am told that the success of the plant has been due largely to the fact that the owners have never hesitated to put in new machinery. There are machines there now that do marvelous and almost unbelievable things. Dwight has always had good local management. I know of nothing that has changed so much as that huge cotton mill.”
Well, Mr. Riddle was right in what he says about the changes. Dwight had operated more steadily than almost any other cotton mill in the country, because of its local management from top to bottom and its habit of tossing outmoded machinery out the window.
Henry Wade Riddle was born November 3, 1876 in South Carolina. He died November 4, 1958 (aged 82) in Gadsden, and is buried at Forrest Cemetery.
