Title	Celanese Village: neighborhood intersection
Creator(s)	West, Carroll Van
Date	2011
Coverage	2010-2019
Property name	Celanese Village
Property type	District
Community Name	Rome, Floyd County, GA
Latitude/Longitude	34.257038,-85.164673
Description	Color photograph of a T intersection with a one story brick house with interior brick chimney on the corner.
Historical Notes	Celanese Village is a community located in the Riverside district of Floyd County in the Appalachian foothills of Northwest Georgia, just north of the Rome city limits. It was first constructed in 1929 by American Chatillon Corporation, an Italian rayon textile manufacturing company backed by American investors. The village included nearly five hundred worker houses as well as twenty-five homes for management. For the plant president, Chatillon purchased a large frame house that had once been owned by Major Ridge, a Cherokee chief who signed the Treaty of New Echota, selling almost all that remained of Cherokee land to the federal government in 1835. In addition to the houses, the village included services such as a school, clinic, general store, pharmacy, and several fire houses. All but the fire houses were built of brick, a unique feature for an early twentieth-century southern textile mill village. Workers could choose from five different home plans, including single-family homes of three to six rooms and efficiency duplexes. All of the homes came with indoor plumbing and electricity. In 1930 Chatillon merged with a Belgian producer, Tubize, and operated as Tubize-Chatillon until after World War II, when British rayon manufacturer Celanese Corporation of America purchased the mill complex and village. In the 1950s, Celanese allowed workers to purchase homes in the village, which had previously been maintained and leased out by the company. Though the change meant that workers assumed more responsibility for the maintenance of the homes and grounds of the village, it also allowed them to build on and adjust the small homes to suit the needs of growing, modern families. Today, much of the village is still standing, except for the management houses of which there remain only two. The mill ceased operation in 1976, but many families stayed in the village for many years. Today, the residents of the community are a mixture of college students, young families and professionals, and long-term residents from before the closing of the mill. The houses have been altered over the years and adapted to the changing needs of residents, but on the whole still largely retain their historic character. The community is immediately adjacent to the Rome bypass, a minor league baseball stadium, restaurants, the Major Ridge home which now operates as Chieftains Museum, and a large city park with a trail leading to downtown Rome two miles away.
Collection Name	Southern History Documentary Projects
Subject-LCSH	Dwellings Industrial towns Planned communities
Subject-TGM	Houses Neighborhoods
Type	Still image
Format	jpeg2000
Genre	Photograph
Processing notes	Electronic file
Copyright status	Copyright of the creator. Reproduced with permission
Conditions for use	Credit Center for Historic Preservation, Middle Tennessee State University Reproduction permitted for non-profit educational and research purposes only
Digital Publisher	Digital Initiatives, James E. Walker Library, Middle Tennessee State University
Contributing Institution	Center for Historic Preservation, Middle Tennessee State University
Source file	CelaneseVil008