BLANKET TOWN
I Spent a couple of Summers working here while in college, and made good money — enough to live on through the rest of the year. Most of my immediate and extended family worked here, either a little bit, or all of their lives. When it was good, it was great, but American factories could not keep up with imports from countries with much lower costs of living (not to mention sweat shops and slave labor).
The work at Beacon was hard, but it gave its employees a good wage, and a way to raise themselves and their children out of poverty after the World Wars and the Great Depression. People (like my grandparents) left their homes and family farms for the promise of a better life (or just to help their parents). I cannot say I like some of what Beacon did to Swannanoa, at least in retrospect, because its dominance kept the town from growing into something sustainable and ultimately killed it, but overall Beacon Blankets made things better for people throughout Western North Carolina.
In the end, the company and its owners, the Owens family, are to be commended.