"Milling" Around Town Mystery Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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This is my very first cache placement (and a puzzle at that!) so
please bear with me! This puzzle cache will take you on a nice
little tour of an interesting little town. There is parking at or
near each stage, and it is recommended that you drive and park for
each stage due to some active railroad tracks in the area that you
will need to cross during the tour (hence the difficulty rating).
Permission to place this cache was granted by the Graniteville Fire
Chief.
The coordinates above will take you to the beginning of your tour
(Stage 1). For stages 1-5, you will find answers at specific
locations along the tour to complete the coordinates for the
following stages and the final cache. For the final stage (6), you
will be looking for a cylindrical container about 6 inches long.
Please BYOP.
Stage 1: Headquarters
Graniteville dates back to 1845 when William Gregg, an ardent
advocate of industrialization in the antebellum South, founded the
successful Graniteville Company, the South's first large scale
cotton mill, in Horse Creek Valley. His mill town included 90
homes, several boarding houses, six stores, two churches, and a
school for the mill workers and their families. As you can see,
railroads run up and down and all through the area, which was an
essential part of Gregg's industrial dream. The town became known
as Graniteville because most of the original buildings were
constructed of blue granite from local quarries. Gregg argued that
economic domination by the North was best met by Southern
industrialization. He gained sufficient support for his own
efforts, but was unable to bring about any general change in the
agrarian southern economy. Until 1996, Graniteville was the home
office and central location of this collection of textile plants in
South Carolina and Georgia known as The Graniteville Company. The
building in front of you was the main headquarters for the original
mill. In 1996, the company was bought out by Avondale Mills, a
company which was one of the largest denim manufacturers in the
United States. Avondale closed or sold off all of its plants in the
area in 2006, unable to recover financially from a train accident
in 2005.
***To the left of the building, you will see a tall monument
acknowledging William Gregg as founder of the Graniteville
Company.
If A= the number of letters in the other person's name on the Gregg
monument plus one,
then STAGE 2= N33°34.1A4 W081°48.49A
Stage 2: Horse Power
Horse Creek Valley was the great industrial center of Aiken County
with its many textile mills and its two great finishing plants
which ranked with the world's best. They are situated on Horse
Creek, a twelve mile long creek, which was so called merely because
it was frequented by horses during the time Native Americans
inhabited the area. Gregg constructed the Graniteville Canal in
1846, using the flow from Horse Creek and Bridge Creek to power his
factories.
Here you can see part of Horse Creek, which, in the old days, with
its many mill ponds, furnished much of the power for the
mills.
***If B=the number of sidewalk blocks along the bridge railing
divided by three,
then STAGE 3= N33°34.058 W081°48.4B7
Stage 3: Back to Basics
An integral part of the Graniteville mill town was school, the
first one being The Graniteville Academy (located at 103 Canal St.,
in case you'd like to add it to your tour). Believing that every
child should be educated, Gregg made attendance compulsory. He paid
the teachers' salaries, bought books, and even paid the families
money equal to what the child would be earning in the mill. He
provided student transportation to and from school on the same
wagon that hauled the cloth to his mill. Before you is Leavelle
McCampbell Middle School. Named for a former president of the
Graniteville Manufacturing Company, Leavelle McCampbell School
housed both the elementary and high school grades during the 1920s.
Today, Leavelle McCampbell has been consolidated, integrated,
reorganized, and its beautiful old granite and brick building
renovated. It serves students in the middle grades of 6th, 7th, and
8th.
***If C= the number of small windows above the front doors of the
school minus A,
then STAGE 4= N33°34.C12 W081°48.325
Stage 4: Religion in Revival
In 1847, Gregg offered free building sites to religious groups as
long as they agreed to use good architects. Two churches were
completed by 1849, a Baptist church and a Methodist church, however
the Baptist church burned a few years later. Designed by Charleston
architect J.B. White, St. John's Methodist Church was built with
the Early Gothic Revival style as an imitation of Westminster Abbey
(note the windows). You are standng in front of what is considered
to be the oldest church in a Southern Mill Community. As you pass
through along Gregg Street, take a look at some of the remaining
original mill houses, as well.
***If D= the number of all the red steps on the front side of the
church buildings divided by three,
then STAGE 5= N33°33.765 W081°48.D66
Stage 5:Tragedy Strikes
On January 6th, 2005, at around 2:45 in the morning, a Norfolk
Southern freight train unexpectedly veered from the main rail line
onto a side rail where three locomotives were parked. A violent
impact derailed cars into a mangled heap, ripping open a chlorine
tank and releasing more than 60 tons of the chemical into the night
air. Within minutes, the poisonous green cloud enveloped the town
of Graniteville and the surrounding area and poisoned everything in
its path. Nine people died, hundreds were injured, and thousands
were forced from their homes, some for as long as a month. The
people of the town erected a monument in rememberance of those who
were affected by the deadliest chemical spill ever to hit U.S.
rails, here in the tiny Deep South town of Graniteville, S.C.
***Using the monument,
If E= the chapter number plus the verse number of the quote from
the book of John divided by four, and If F= the number of derailed
train cars minus ten,
then FINAL STAGE 6 = N33°33.EFC W081°DA.DEB
Good luck!!
Oringinal contents include: a log, a tiger eraser, a FTF prize of
$5, some cotton, some pretend blue granite :), a toy train, a metal
cross keyring, an Aiken County Public Schools pin, and a Civil War
bill.
Info for this cache retrieved from:
http://www.aiken.k12.sc.us/schools/lmms/histofsch.html
http://www.aiken.k12.sc.us/schools/byrdel/history.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graniteville,_South_Carolina
http://src1.cas.sc.edu/dept2/iss/SCNames/index.php?
action=showPage&book=1&volume=7&page=12
http://www.pe.com/digitalextra/metro/trains/graniteville.html
Congrats to
tombstone1 for being FTF!!!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Purpx fhz: N+O+P+Q+R+S= gjragl-frira
Svany pnpur: Unir n frng naq nqzver gur ybiryl terrarel nyy nebhaq lbh.