​​Personal Experience

        Having grown up in Kannapolis during the time when there was a lot of turmoil surrounding the mill and it shutting down, the city has changed so much. I remember going downtown and shopping often and a lot of my family members worked in the mill. I remember my freshman year at A.L. Brown High School when we would walk around the track during P.E. you could see the large smoke stacks that seemed to loom over the city. I always remembered seeing smoke come from them and driving down Main Street when the mill was open and very busy. When everything shut down, it was very weird. So many people were now unemployed and I learned what that meant. It became dark and dreary; almost like a cloud was hanging over the city.

        Then everyone in the city learned that the cite of a once booming mill had been purchased by the same person who had purchased it several years prior, David Murdock. People wondered what would be made of the cite, would life be brought back into the town, what would become of the empty? Many people did not want to see the buildings demolished, but I believe everyone knew that would happen eventually.

        Now that the North Carolina Research Campus is in the place of the old cite of Cannon Mills, things have changed. The cloud has been lifted off of the city, but the fear of change still holds on to some citizens, including my grandmother. She thinks it is a beautiful place, but still out of touch with everyone that lives there (Frye, 2012). The generation of people still living in Kannapolis are those who remember the original Mill Town life, myself included and I personally feel a little out of touch with the large Science buildings in the middle of our city and if I feel that, I can't begin to imagine how the people who grew up in mill houses and had parents, grandparents, or they themselves worked in the mill. I almost wish that I could take a trip back in time and see what was so amazing about Kannapolis that has such a hold on the hearts of it's citizens.