Travel Western North Carolina

At times described in the guides of the period (1905 – 1919) as an “industrial suburb” of Waynesville, the town of Hazelwood boasted a number of manufacturing establishments and incorporated in 1905. The 1916 Pictorial Story of Haywood County claimed that the town “is the home of three great industries – the Junaluska Leather Co., Unagusta Manufacturing Co., and the Waynesville Furniture Co. . . .” The Junaluska Leather Company employed up to one hundred men. Unagusta Manufacturing Company and the Waynesville Furniture Company, were furniture factories. On February 28, 1918, during World War I, the Carolina Mountaineer and Waynesville Courier (Waynesville, N.C.) newspaper ran a history and update on the factory:

“To a novice, like the writer at least, the factory is very interesting. Machinery does most of the work. Men now merely handle machines in the big industries. There are not only planers but sand papering machines. Nor do they varnish by hand; a spraying machine does that. In the finishing department a few girls are given employment. But for that matter it would seem that women could easily qualify in several other departments as feeding machines can be done by women as well as men.”