The Coleman Manufacturing Company (1897–1904) had the first cotton mill in the United States owned and operated by African Americans.[1] Organized in 1897 by Warren Clay Coleman and others, and operating under original leadership until 1904, it was located in the Piedmont area about two miles from the county seat of Concord, North Carolina in Cabarrus County. Textile manufacturing had been established here before the American Civil War, but the mills hired only white industrial workers. The Coleman property later became part of Franklin Cotton Mills and a Fieldcrest Cannon plant.
Photographs of the mill and a description were featured in the Negro Exhibit of the United States installation at the Paris Exposition of 1900 in France, showing African-American progress in the US. In the early 21st century, the mill building, now known as the Coleman-Franklin-Cannon Mill, houses the production facilities of Southern Grace Distilleries, Inc.[2] It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.