Biohazard Cleanup Near Ridgedale Lindale, GA

Lindale is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Floyd County, just southeast of Rome and part of the Rome metropolitan area.

A post office called Lindale has operated in the community since 1883, and local tradition says the name may have been selected from a novel that a resident had been reading.

In 1896 the Massachusetts Cotton Mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, opened a textile mill in Lindale with 42,000 spindles and 1,400 looms, quickly making it one of the largest mills in Georgia; by 1903 it employed 1,393 people and at its peak produced about one-seventh of all textiles in Georgia.

The mill company built a mill village of dozens of houses for its workers and supplied a primary school with paid teachers free of charge to mill families.

In 1926 the Pepperell Manufacturing Company purchased the mill, and the community and its schools took the Pepperell name — Lindale is still commonly called "Pepperell" today.

In 1931 a few mill employees built a wooden star lined with lights and hung it between the mill's two smokestacks at Christmas, starting a beloved annual tradition; a star-lighting ceremony is still held in Lindale each holiday season.

The Lindale mill closed on September 24, 2001, ending 105 years of textile manufacturing in the community.

The surviving 23-acre Lindale Mill complex, with brick buildings dating to 1896, is now used as a filming location for movie and television productions, photography and events.

The Old Brick Mill on Silver Creek, a grist mill dating to about 1830, is one of Lindale's oldest structures and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Local students attend Pepperell Middle School and Pepperell High School, whose teams carry on the mill-era Gryphon mascot of West Point-Pepperell (now WestPoint Home).