Steve Allen, (pictured third from right, middle row) local business owner and former Brandon Mill football team player. "Shoeless" Joe Jackson pictured below.
A Library Patron Remembers Brandon Mill… At the age of 15, Steve Allen became one of the fourth generation of cotton mill workers in his family when he began working for Brandon Mill in Greenville, SC. The mill, constructed in 1901, was well past its heyday, and just eight years away from closing its doors when Allen started as a spare hand. “I did a little bit of everything. I daubed cloth, worked in the spinning room, worked in the warper room,” he remembers. Brandon Mill, for which Steve Allen played football from 1969 to 1971, is forever intertwined with the legacy of Greenville-born Joseph Jefferson "Shoeless" Joe Jackson who honed his skills playing baseball here during his formative years. Shoeless Joe Jackson went on to fame, and then, notoriety, playing first for the Philadelphia A's and later, for the Chicago White Sox. While Shoeless Joe reported (in 1949) that he’d earned his moniker while playing barefoot on a field due to blisters gained from a pair of shoes that had not been broken in, play without shoes was not an uncommon situation for
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LIBRARY NOW // Spring/Summer 2020
