From Staff Reports 

“Beacon Blankets: Portrait of a Swannanoa Textile Mill” — an evening of film, music, and stories about the rise and fall of the Beacon Manufacturing Co. — will be presented from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Nov. 20.

The program will be held at The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design’s Benchspace Gallery at 67 Broadway St. in downtown Asheville.

Just east of Asheville, Swannanoa is a small community and the former home of Beacon Blankets, at one time the largest manufacturer of blankets in the world. 

In its hey-day during the 1940s, Beacon was the largest employer in the Swannanoa Valley, with more than 2,200 workers. Beacon closed its Swannanoa plant in 2002. The factory was burned to the ground in 2003. 

Beacon Blankets was at the heart of cultural life for the Swannanoa community. It historically sponsored recreation and activities for its workers. The company's most prominent owner, Charles D. Owen, was recognized for his community service through the naming of the Charles D. Owen High School in 1955. 

When the textile industry continued to decline in the 1970s and ‘80s and NAFTA was introduced in the ‘90s, small mill towns, like Swannanoa, began to disappear. 

"With the original Beacon site up for sale and growing interest in revitalizing the area, rebuilding the community today should take careful consideration of the history of Swannanoa and the Beacon story," according to Marilyn Zapf, CCCD assistant director.

The program will begin with a reception featuring mill-inspired music by Robert “Bert” Brown, a native of Swannanoa whose grandparents worked at Beacon. From 6  to 6:30 p.m., filmmaker Rebecca Williams will be showing clips from her ongoing documentary project, “Blanket Town: The Rise and Fall of an American Mill Town,” which examines the migration of the textile industry from England, to New England to the American South. The screening will be followed (6:30-7:30 p.m.) by a panel discussion with previous Beacon Blanket mill employees, led by Dr. David Whisnant, an acclaimed Appalachian historian.