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The DASH story: Revitalizing historic neighborhoods

In the late 1800s, post-Reconstruction LaGrange, Ga., like other cities throughout the South, continued its struggle to rebuild. Just as Southern towns began to venture into industrialization, so did LaGrange, with an emphasis on textile mills. While LaGrange Oil and Manufacturing Company converted its plant into the town's first textile mill in 1888, it was the second plant, Dixie Mill, that gained the attention of local investors who poured money into its development. But by the time Dixie opened in 1895, its substandard machinery made it inoperable.

Enter Fuller E. Callaway, Sr.

A native son of LaGrange, the 25-year-old entrepreneur, Fuller E. Callaway, Sr., had invested $10,000, his entire life savings, into Dixie Mill. Intent on not losing his investment, he made it his mission to refit the mill with efficient equipment, bringing it into full operation. With his mission accomplished, Callaway saved not only his investment but that of other investors and, to a degree, the struggling little city itself. From this first foray into running a factory, Callaway went on to become a textile magnate, making a name for himself throughout the South and helping to grow LaGrange into a viable city as the communities around his mills grew.

By 1915, Callaway Mills Textile Company consisted of five state-of-the-art textile plants. An integral part of the economic and social fabric of LaGrange, these mills and their accompanying mill villages developed as the 20th century unfolded, when rural farmers began their trek into town for better wages. The mill owners, Callaway in particular, genuinely cared for their employees, who had traded lives of sharecropping for hopes of greater opportunities in town. In return for uprooting from their rural farms, Callaway built homes and boarding houses, schools, stores and clinics for his employees and their families, assuring roofs over their heads plus new roots underfoot on which they could build strong neighborhoods to raise their children.

In these mill villages, Callaway was as closely connected to social life as to work life. Children frolicked on playgrounds built by Callaway, ladies gathered for various functions at the Callaway Educational Association building, and men took their families to churches built with Callaway funds.

The thriving communities remained strong for several decades until LaGrange, in the 1950s, joined a nationwide trend of families moving from cities into the new suburbs. Callaway Mills began selling the mill houses; some workers purchased the homes they had rented, but many were sold to outside investors. New residents often had no connection to the mills, and many rented houses for only a year or two, never putting down roots necessary to grow the community. In the 1970s, Callaway Mills was sold to South Carolina-based Milliken and Company.

Several of the century-old textile plants continue to provide jobs to area citizens today, but the mills have long lost their status as the sole centerpieces of community vitality. As a result, the condition of the housing began to decline and, by the year 2000, some areas of the old mill villages were in extreme disrepair with the neighborhoods becoming increasingly unsafe.

Another Native Son

Ricky Wolfe was one of the hundreds of children who grew up in the LaGrange mill villages in the 1950s. When the successful entrepreneur returned to live in LaGrange in 1999, what he discovered startled him: poverty housing in what was once the idyllic hometown of his youth. Dilapidated houses with sagging front porches replaced the freshly painted homes with pristine yards where families once gathered at twilight. Dismal signs of disdain and neglect now erased the feeling of happiness and sense of home that once prevailed.

Wolfe initially thought perhaps the older residents had become less able to afford upkeep for the homes they cherished. However, while studying the residential situation, he found the town to be, in large part, a community of renters. While the national average for homeownership in a similar-sized town is 66 percent, only 46 percent of LaGrange residents owned their homes. In addition, he learned that of LaGrange's 11,000 housing units, approximately 3,000 were substandard. This startling revelation grew into a resolve to eliminate LaGrange's substandard housing, which was the culprit Wolfe deemed responsible for stealing a sense of community from the old neighborhoods.

Moved by the belief that homeownership is key to improving community conditions, Wolfe and a band of like-minded volunteers formed the organization DASH for LaGrange, Inc. in 2002 to provide sustainable housing in LaGrange. Initial support came in the form of a $5 million grant to start neighborhood revitalization in the Hillside community, one of the many LaGrange neighborhoods born as a mill village. The $5 million benefactor was none other than the Callaway Foundation, Inc. Managed by descendants of the textile magnate, the local foundation became the first to support DASH efforts to revitalize the very neighborhoods built by Fuller E. Callaway a century earlier.

Since then, DASH has acquired considerable properties, purchasing forlorn houses and abandoned lots and transforming the aging buildings and weed-infested sites into charming homes, improving the lives of the individuals who live there, and collectively lifting community spirits in the resurrected neighborhoods.

How It Works

DASH uses staff construction workers, local contractors and for-profit builders to rehabilitate old houses and build new ones. When renovating, the DASH crew provides a complete overhaul, stripping each house down to studs. Unique architectural details are incorporated to insure that the original architecture is preserved. Refurbished houses are usually sold at or below the appraised value; the not-for-profit agency makes no profit from home sales. Instead, DASH recoups what was put into the home purchase and renovation and puts that money back into the organization to continue the cycle of rehabilitating more homes.

New homes built by DASH include cottages, condominiums and townhouses. Renovation or new home construction continues on many houses at any given time.

Expanding the Scope

In the Hillside community alone, DASH has renovated or built from the ground up almost 140 houses, including 70 new homes at Laurel Ridge, a lease/purchase neighborhood developed in partnership with Gateway Companies. One of the first single-family, Low Income Housing Tax Credit projects in Georgia, the $10 million project was completed in 2008 and features a pristine neighborhood with 70 houses, a playground and a community center with a computer room welcoming residents, young and old, to enhance their education or advance their skills.

While work continues at Hillside, other areas have experienced DASH intervention as well, including the Dunson community, where Ricky Wolfe was raised. Here, DASH stepped in to save the historic Dunson School from slated demolition and, with a $3.2 million HUD Section 202 grant, renovated the Ivey & Crook structure into 28 apartments for low-income senior citizens. Completed in 2007, the Richard W. Wolfe Apartments at Dunson School (named for the founder's father who was plant manager at Dunson Mill) has become a hub of activity within the former mill village.

Along with these communities, two other LaGrange neighborhoods have been targeted for revitalization: Thomas Town and East Depot. Often in small Southern cities such as LaGrange, progress stops at interstate crossings and railroad tracks, leaving one area vital and growing while the area on the "other side of the tracks" declines. DASH hopes to bridge that gap by applying the same care to those neglected neighborhoods as that which was bestowed across the tracks.

Turning Vision Into Reality

Today, DASH is a vibrant, active non-profit agency whose work continues simultaneously in its target communities. An important element in each of these projects is the organization's greater interest: revitalizing all aspects of the community. DASH requires its neighborhoods to form community associations and works with local churches to provide outreach programs. In short, DASH expects homeowners to participate in bringing new life to their revitalized neighborhoods.

"We tell residents DASH is your partner, but not your salvation," says Wolfe. "Our aim is to nurture consistent involvement of residents who become vocal and active about what happens in their neighborhoods.

"Community revitalization means more than just affordable housing," the DASH founder continues. "It means bringing together all segments, having some low-income housing near high-end housing and mixing lifestyles to create cultural, social and economic diversity, to create the fabric with which we will build stronger communities. We want to partner with residents to create neighborhoods that provide a high quality of life and which will enrich, uplift and inspire the human spirit."

The mission of DASH is to revitalize and make sustainable LaGrange's once vibrant neighborhoods by eliminating substandard housing, creating socio-economic diversity, encouraging homeownership, inviting economic development and engaging residents in active community leadership. For additional information about DASH or its initiatives, contact us at (706) 298-0221 or visit us online at http://www.dashlagrange.com.

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