On January 4, 1893, the Mountain Mills Company was incorporated as the Cherry Cotton Mill, and moved to the bank of Sweetwater Creek near the site of an 1832 cotton factory. The new officers were: Colonel N.F. Cherry, Nial C. Elting and Charles M. Brandon.

The relocated mill took the name of its principal stockholder, Colonel Noel Franklin Cherry. Born June 1, 1831, he was a son of a wealthy cotton planter, Eli Cherry, of Hardin County Tennessee. The name Cherry is well known to scholars of the Battle of Shiloh. General Grant was staying at the Cherry Mansion in Savannah Tennessee, when he received news that General Albert Sidney Johnston had attacked his forces encamped at nearby Pickwick Landing the beginning of the Battle of Shiloh.

Colonel Cherry, although reared on a farm, began his career in the mercantile business. He later moved to McNairy County, Tennessee where he lived more than twenty years. From there he moved to Corinth, Mississippi and then to Florence so as to oversee the cotton factory operations that he and his brother had established at Mountain Mills near Barton in Colbert County. He and his wife, Francis Keturah Johnson Cherry, made their home in a large white Victorian mansion on North Wood Avenue. They had five children: The Rev. J.W. Cherry, Dr. E.O. Cherry, H.A. Cherry, Mrs. R.M. Martin and Miss Margaret Cherry. Colonel Cherry, a loyal and faithful member of Florence's First United Meth. Church, died in October 1903 at the age of 73 years. He is buried in the Florence Cemetery.

Nials Childs Elting was a native of Ellenville, NY. It was the East Florence Boom that brought him to Florence in 1889 to establish,, along with R.L. Bliss, the First National Bank. He died April 16, 1933. He and his wife, Annie Van Sickler, had no heirs. She died in 1905. They are buried in the Florence Cemetery. Elting bequeathed to his church, The First Presbyterian Church of Florence, the income from a liberal trust fund.

Charles M. Brandon was the son of Washington M. and Mary B. Brandon. His father was the superintendent of the railroad bridge at Florence. Charles M. Brandon was never married. He was responsible for the location of Brandon Elementary School at East Florence. This school was named in his memory the year following his death, which occurred October 26, 1898 at Ashville, NC. His body was returned to his home and he is buried in the Florence Cemetery.

The managers of the mill built company houses on nearby Cherry Hill for its employees. A number of private homes were built in Sweetwater Creek Valley by employees of the mill, as well as by employees of other East Florence industry. Life in the village was fairly well regulated, time-wise, by the loud steam whistle that announced the beginning and ending of the workday as well as the time for the lunch break. By 1903, Cherry Cotton Mill had a capacity of 12,000 spindles and employed some 400 people. These workers were classified as spinners, spoolers, twisters, reelers, doffers and sweepers. Mechanics were employed to keep the machines running. Payroll records dated April, 1898 listed a scale of wages ranging from 15 cents to 75 cents a day for most of the 400 employees. The mechanics and other craftsmen earned from $1.00 to $1.50 a day. The highest wage listed was that of Franklin Pierce Johnson at $2.00 a day. He was classified as a supervisor. A newspaper article in September 1936 reported a total of 300 workers and an annual payroll amounting to $225,000. Officers at that time were: Jewett T. Flagg, President, Miles W. Darby, Vice-President, Sam C. Harlan, Treasurer, and Frank Longcrier, Assistant Treasurer. Fred Gamble was listed as a mill foreman. Miles Darby, who came to Florence from Mississippi as a boy, served as Vice-President and General Manager for 44 years. From 1893 until the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929, the Cherry Cotton Mill has consumed approximately 150,000 bales of cotton, most of which was grown by farmers in Lauderdale and surrounding counties. Quality cotton yarns were shipped all over the United States and in several foreign counties. However this once prosperous cotton factory was not able to survive the financial crisis brought about by the Great Depression.

Old timers remembered that the Cherry Cotton Mill was "blowed out" in August 1893 by Tom Anderton. This meant that Tom Anderton, the boiler man, had brought the steam boiler to a full head and, for the first time the power generated by the boiler was converted to the machinery that turned the spindles, reels, twisters, and all other equipment necessary for full operation.

Tom Anderton was one of the numerous families that had followed the Cherry Cotton Mill to Florence from Barton in Colbert County, AL. At Barton the cotton factory was known as Mountain Mills. The editor of the Weekly Enterprise of Sheffield visited this factory and mill town the year before the mill was dismantled and moved to East Florence. He gave an interesting account of this early forerunner of East Florence's Cherry Cotton Mill: "The buildings are simply elegant and the machinery is of the latest style and embraces all the modern improvements for making cotton yarns. It works about 100 operators, mostly women and children. Its capacity is 600 spindles, consumes 1500 bales of cotton per year, and makes 2,000 pounds of yarn 21 per day with a payroll of $1500 per month. The products are sold almost exclusively in Philadelphia, New York and Providence, Rhode Island, which cities take all the products of the mill. The little city of Mountain Mills contains about 300 inhabitants and is cumbered among the hills two miles and half from the railroad. It has the appearance of being one of the most happy communities in the whole country, and while rather isolated from the balance of the world, you will find as much refinement and intelligence there as in any other part of Colbert County. It has a good union church and a good school building with no saloons, and no temples of justice as the citizens have no lawsuits or infractions of law. The mills are owned and operated by W.H. Cherry and Company and C.M. Brandon, the Superintendent and one of the members of the firm, understands his business." (The Weekly Enterprise, Sheffield AL July 16, 1892)

The ancestor of Mountain Mills in Colbert County was the Globe Factory, or the Cypress Mills, on Cypress Creek near Florence. By 1860 there were three dams practically within sight of each other. The supplied power for two cotton mills (The Globe Cotton Factory) and a gristmill. All of these mills were burned by Colonel Florence M. Cornyn of the Union Army in 1863. The Cypress Mill that was rebuilt after the war by the heirs of James Martin. In 1889 all interests in this mill were sold and many of the workers moved to Mountain Mills near Barton. In 1893 this factory was relocated to Sweetwater as the Cherry Cotton Mill. Most of the workers moved with the mill and became the cadre for the expanding work force. These two mills, the Cypress Mills Co. and the Mountain Mills Co., became the forerunner of one of the largest cotton factories to locate in East Florence during the 1887-1910 industrial periods. The forerunner of Cypress Mills was the Skipworth Mills at the same site on Cypress Creek as early as 1836. In fact, Magnolia Cole, a daughter of Franklin Pierce Johnson whose family had the very earliest connections with The Cypress Mills, told of an earlier mill at the same site going all the way back to the 1820's.

After relocating to East Florence, Colonel Noel Franklin Cherry, brother of W.H. Cherry, became the chief executive officer. Following him a Yankee from Ellensville, NY, Nial Childs Elting, became President of Cherry Cotton Mill. Elting came to Florence in 1888 to establish along with another New Yorker, Colonel Robert L. Bliss, the First National Bank. It is said that Elting had a cadre of financial backers from his hometown. He wasn't in Florence very long until he became the presiding officer of the bank, Cherry Cotton Mill, and 22 other businesses. He was also a heavy investor in numerous other local enterprises. He became very rich, and having no heirs, left most of his estate to his beloved First Presbyterian Church of Florence.

Nial C. Elting was a dapper little man, somewhat less than normal height, but nevertheless, made a commanding, if aloof, presence. Not even his closest associates dared to address him other than "Mr. Elting." He wore a neatly trimmed dark brown Vandyke beard, stiff linen collar, white linen shirt, and a four-in-one silk tie. Almost always he was dressed in a dark gray or blue pinstripe suit with black shoes and gaiters and a black derby hat.

Elting was one of the few East Florence investors who did not lose his fortune during the austere financial days that followed the Florence Boom. It was said that he was an excellent judge of character, and could size up loan applicants almost before they gathered enough courage to ask him for a loan at the bank. Only one man beat him, and, according to one of his associates at the bank, Elting never showed any emotion over this transaction, other than to report later that the account had been paid in full, with interest. It was believe that Elting took the loss out of his own pocket rather than see the bank suffer its consequences.

Mr. Elting drove a Cole touring car, but it was said that he never understood how its gears worked. Sometimes he drove several blocks in second gear without being aware of it. One time he got into his car, which was parked on the north side of Mobile Street, and released the clutch which caused it to surge forward over the curb and stopped just short of the bank. For many years, however, thee were some who liked to point out a small fracture in the wall as the place where Mr. Elting's Cole automobile ran into the bank.