Chicopee, Georgia facts for kids
Chicopee is a special place in Hall County, Georgia, United States. It's a former mill village located about four miles south of downtown Gainesville. A mill village was a community built around a factory, where the factory workers lived.
Chicopee: A Unique Mill Village
Chicopee was carefully planned in 1925 by a famous designer named Earle Sumner Draper. He designed it for the Chicopee Manufacturing Corporation. This company was part of The Johnson and Johnson Company, which you might know for its health products.
Building a Community
Construction of Chicopee started in 1927. This project was very important to Robert Wood Johnson II, a leader at Johnson & Johnson. It was Earle Sumner Draper's last and most successful mill town design.
The village was built with 217 homes for the workers. It also had a company store where people could buy supplies. There was even a medical office for healthcare. Right across the street from the village was the large textile mill. This mill was one of the first big, single-story textile factories built in the Southern United States.
Chicopee Today
Today, Chicopee is an unincorporated village. This means it's not officially part of a city. It has a population of about 350 people. The original plan was to build around 500 homes, but only 217 were completed in the first phase.
Even though it's unincorporated, Chicopee is very important. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This means it's recognized for its historical value and is protected. The entire area of Chicopee, Georgia, is now considered a historic district.
The old mill buildings are now inside the city limits of Gainesville. However, the village itself is still in unincorporated Hall County.
In 1950, the U.S. Census counted 1,151 people living in Chicopee. This shows how the population has changed over time.
