CARROLL COUNTY, GA - NEWSPAPERS Villa Rica - Gold Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Dianne Crawford Georgia Table of Contents: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm 'City of Riches' Now Highly Industrialized by Harriette Schreiber Georgia gold rushers named their town Villa Rica, meaning "city of riches." And the miners who poured into the town in 1830 found a wealth of rich ore awaiting them. The Villa Rica mines, worked profitably until the Civil War, made the town boom. It was incorporated in 1842. Seeking transportation to the nearest gold market of Augusta, the miners persuaded the Georgia Pacific Railroad (now the Southern Railroad) to come into Villa Rica in 1862. Before the miners had much time to profit from this more convenient transportation the mines wealth began to wane. After more than 30 years of gold- rush boom, the gutted "Georgia Klondike" town was on the verge of becoming a ghost town. Historians as late as 1913 were saying the town of Villa Rica had "disappeared from the map". But the historians failed to consider Villa Rica's new "gold mine", the rich industrial boom which has enveloped the town in the past 50 years. As of January, 1957, Villa Rica boasted at least 22 industries, producing caskets, hosiery, anklets, caps, lawn furniture, sports shirts, fertilizer, aluminum window frames, newspapers and job printing, feed stuff as well as several lumber mills and cotton gins. Among these industries are Atlanta Casket Co., Bob's Hosiery Mill, J.C. Brown's Hosiery Mill, L.G. Brown's Sawmill, Bryant Manufacturing Co., Inc., J.M. Burns Co., Peco Production Corp., Villa Rica Hosiery Mill, Villa Rica Lumber Co., Gene's Hosiery Mill, Land's Hosiery Mill. Laurel Cotton Mill, Camp Cap Co., Easterwood Hosiery Mill, Georgia Hosiery Mill, Golden City Hosiery, Loy R. Hembree's Sawmill, Villa Rica Metal Manufacturing Co., The Villa Rican, The Villa Rica Breeze, Villa Rica Mills, Inc., and Villa Rica Oil Mill Gin. NOTE: I found this old article from the 1950s in my deceased aunt's old scrapbook.