Whitmire is losing its landmark.

Except for the front towers, which will be preserved, the Whitmire mill is being deconstructed one piece at a time.

Martijn van Zadelhoff, president of Vintage Building Products, is careful to use the term “deconstruction.” As passers by can observer, there isn't a wrecking ball involved. Brick by brick, board by board, beam by beam, the mill is being carefully taken apart so that the historic structure can still serve a purpose.

Vintage Building Products deconstructs old buildings then sells 95 percent of the structures in reclaimed bricks, wood and steel. The materials are reused to build new homes and businesses in the United States and overseas.

Since it closed in 2001, the Whitmire mill has served as office space for Vintage Building Products, and the local company will continue to use the location even after the mill is taken down. Van Zadelhoff said he will preserve the mill's towers as a sort of landmark for the town.

Even so, town residents are sad to see the mill go.

“It's kind of heartbreaking, but I know that we have to move on and do things differently,” said former mill employee and Whitmire resident Doris Harris. “It was the life of Whitmire, more or less, because there were so many people working there. Most everyone worked there; not too many went out of town to work. It was just home, had a special place in your heart.”

The cotton mill opened in 1902, but changed hands several times as the textile industry began to die. It finally closed in 2001 under Westpoint-Stevens. Nearly 300 workers were laid off, including Lyman Smith.

“I miss a lot of my friends. Mostly, if you have something like (the mill) for that long period of time you think you're home. People down there, they were just family,” Smith said. “I live right up above it, and I ride by there every day. They're tearing it down. I hate to see it go; it's a lot of memories. When it's gone, it ain't coming back.”

Smith worked in the cotton mill for 34 years. Harris was employed there for 35 years before retiring. Both say that while the mill was a primary place of employment for the town, it meant much more to its workers.

“The old mills, they were the backbone of the town back then,” Smith said. “That's where people made their living and raised their families and everything-in those old mills. I think it meant a lot to Whitmire. Since it closed, Whitmire looks like it's drifted off track a little bit.”

“It was the town's survival,” Harris said, “and as we are now, we don't have anything that really fulfills that promise of employment.”

Smith said he'd like to see the structure stay, and perhaps be renovated. But Van Zadelhoff said it's not feasible. Turning mills into office buildings or living quarters is trendy, he said, but in a small town like Whitmire, the millions of dollars it would take to renovate the mill couldn't be justified.

“You cannot use the old mills for industrial purposes because they're not up to code,” he said. “They really become a dangerous fire hazard. If they cannot be rehabilitated, it is my opinion the mill should be deconstructed so the mill can serve another purpose.”

Van Zadelhoff did the same thing with the old Park Street Elementary School in Whitmire. The flower beds accenting the newly retouched downtown were built using bricks from the school.

Likewise, the bricks and columns from the Whitmire mill will be added to historic pieces collected from Vintage Building Products' other projects and then recycled.

Right now, the mill is being slowly taken apart, or “sliced like a cake,” as Van Zadelhoff puts it. He expects the deconstruction to take until the summer, and at that point a new building will go up to house Vintage Building Products and store the reclaimed materials from other deconstructed buildings.