Welcome to the Locke Mill HOA Community Website

About Locke Mill

Built in 1840, the then Concord Manufacturing Company was one of the largest and productive textile mills in Concord. It was the “birthplace of Cabarrus County’s textile industry,” and “was the site of four textile enterprises that operated with an interruption of only four years between 1840… and 1974.” The property was foreclosed in 1873, and the doors were closed. J.M. Odell reopened the mill in 1877 and “began a fifty-year period of spectacular growth during which Cabarrus County rose to become one of the nation’s major textile centers and gave birth to the Cannon Mills Company.”

The mill changed hands again, when the Odell Company sold it to G.W. Watts, in 1908, shortly after it was destroyed in a fire. It continued to thrive as the Locke Cotton Mill; however, because of its use of automated machinery, the community did not. Randolph Mills purchased the property in 1939, after Locke Cotton Mill went bankrupt, and operated in the facility until 1974. “When Randolph Mills ceased operations, a 135-year history of textile production at the site came to an end.”

The prominent, historic, jewel remained vacant until Concord-Kannapolis Investment Company purchased the parcel, in 1979, with plans to redevelop the mill. Today, Locke Mill Plaza serves as an eclectic home to commercial and residential units. Where the history is evident.