Original subtitles

[narrator] A fortress on the Great Plains

where savagery ripped a town apart.

[Michele] There was a time when the poor residents of this town

must have felt like they were living in a war zone.

[narrator] An Alaskan venture

where nature won over greed.

A huge geyser of water shot up into the air

and then, the tunnels flooded.

[narrator] And a forgotten street in the Big Easy

where a national icon learned his trade.

This ground is a sacred place in American cultural history.

[narrator] Scattered across the United States are abandoned structures

and those who know their stories.

These forgotten ruins

reveal the past of this land

and its people.

These are the secrets of hidden America.

In Western Montana lies a small town

that's past has been dominated by one violent institution.

The building looms large and ominous

at the end of the town's one street.

[Michele] From some angles, it looks like a castle or fort,

but from other angles, it looks like a train depot or station.

It's not immediately obvious, that's for sure.

[Linda Rodriguez McRobbie] One of the buildings feels almost like a theater

with this beautiful facade and these impressive columns.

[narrator] News coming from the facility

was of great interest to the local community.

If you lived in Deer Lodge, Montana, chances are you know someone

who worked here. That wasn't necessarily a good thing.

[narrator] Control of the complex was once completely lost.

Someone took over this facility, and you couldn't imagine

a worse person for it to fall into the hands of.

All we knew is that there was one dead.

[narrator] A violent battle for supremacy erupted,

sending shockwaves around the country and beyond.

For 36 hours, it was utter madness.

They were going to set the staff on fire.

He had a bazooka and he shot a bazooka at one of the towers.

[explosion]

[narrator] Built close to the center of a small town,

a priority for this complex

has always been to contain the chaos.

For 130 years,

the perimeter wall has been an effective last line of defense.

It's 24 feet high and it stands underground

approximately four feet.

[narrator] Ray Worthy has spent decades working in facilities like this

and knows the value of secure defenses.

There'd been a lot of attempts to tunnel under it,

but none of 'em were ever successful at getting under it.

The man responsible for constructing this incredibly impressive wall

is a local legend.

[narrator] Frank Conley first arrived in Deer Lodge in 1886

as a 22-year-old deputy sheriff

from Eastern Montana.

Within four years,

he had risen to the top of this facility's hierarchy.

[Sascha] Frank Conley was now in charge of 198 men

who called this place home.

But it wasn't a home any of them dreamed of inhabiting.

[narrator] This is the old Montana State Prison.

Opened in 1871,

it was an attempt to tame the Wild West

and rid Montana of the bandits and vigilantes

who were leaving a path of death and destruction.

Under Warden Conley's rule,

it was no ordinary penitentiary.

Conley routinely held meetings with his prisoners to hear grievances.

[narrator] For years,

this policy worked in Conley's favor.

But one day, his openness backfired.

Four men burst into Conley's office,

the leader wielding a knife.

[Ray] He had the forethought to have a Colt revolver in his drawer,

and it probably saved his life.

[narrator] Conley fired twice, wounding the assailants,

but not enough to prevent them launching an attack.

They savagely slit the throat of his deputy

John Robinson,

before turning their eyes on Conley himself.

[Michele] Conley was lucky to be alive.

One of the slashes came within an eighth

of an inch of his jugular vein,

and he required 103 stitches.

[Linda] The inmates survived.

Conley waited for them to heal

and then, they were sentenced to death.

Conley personally oversaw the hangings.

[narrator] Undeterred by this ordeal,

Warden Conley instigated

a massive prison expansion and modernization project.

Conley was a firm believer that idleness bred insurrection,

so most of the prison was built by the inmates themselves.

[Michele] This large red brick building

was known as Cell Block One or the 1912 Cell Block.

It was built entirely by prisoners

and just in 11 months.

This is an impressive feat.

[narrator] But Conley's strategy of using a prisoner workforce

would ultimately become his downfall.

[Ray] He was very innovative.

By 1917,

he had 60% of the inmates

working outside the prison walls.

[Linda] Conley loaned his prisoners out to building sites across the state.

The unions were furious

because Conley was taking jobs away from not-incarcerated men,

from union members.

[Michele] Eager to please the unions,

the governor promptly removed Conley from his position as warden.

[narrator] He served as warden for 30 years

before one of the longest reigns in U.S. prison history came to an end.

In the post-Conley era, standards nosedived,

and the institution became dangerously overcrowded.

[Michele] A state investigation in 1931

found one of the cell blocks to be, quote,

"a disgrace to civilization."

[Sascha] The atmosphere inside

was understandably roiled.

It must have felt like a tinderbox

just waiting for a spark to ignite it.

[narrator] Poorly-trained and underequipped guards

meant life inside was unofficially

run by a select few inmates.

For one power-hungry criminal who dreamed of controlling his own prison,

Montana State was perfect.

[Michele] Jerry Myles is what you would call a career prisoner.

He spent most of his life bouncing between

various institutions.

[Linda] Myles had heard that the Montana State Prison

had fairly relaxed rules,

and he thought that it would be the perfect place

to fulfil his dream

of running a prison from the inside.

The only problem was Myles was living in Georgia

as a free man at the time,

so he hatched a plan.

[Michele] He purchased a bus ticket to Butte,

which is about 40 miles from here,

was promptly arrested for burglary

and then sentenced for five years

in Montana State Prison.

[Linda] Myles, despite his history of violent and even psychotic behavior,

was placed within the general population at the prison.

Now, this was just trouble waiting to happen.

[narrator] Ten months later,

his plan to take control of the prison was ready.

The heavily outnumbered guards, meanwhile,

were ill-prepared.

[Ray] The 1959 riot,

how they think it started was through inmate Myles.

They took some flammable liquid

and threw on a guard and they threatened to burn the guard

unless they give him a rifle.

Would he rather be burned up than give him a rifle?

[narrator] Myles and his 21-strong inmate mob

then rounded up as many prison staff as they could

and locked them in the cells.

They took the mattresses off,

soaked 'em in flammable liquids,

and left 'em in there and they say,

"Well, if you don't let us out,

all we have to do is throw a match in there

and they'll burn to death."

With control of the prison, an armed Myles headed to the deputy warden's office.

Myles burst into his office wielding a cleaver.

[narrator] On the 16th of April, 1959,

a deranged inmate at the Montana State Prison

named Jerry Myles, and his accomplice, Lee Smart,

had taken 18 prison employees hostage

and began a vicious attack on the deputy warden.

He managed to deflect the first few blows,

but he couldn't do anything to stop Myles' right-hand man,

Smart, from firing a rifle right into his chest.

[narrator] The rioters allowed the deputy's body to be removed from the prison.

For Marlene and her friend Phyllis,

whose parents both worked inside,

it's a moment neither of them will ever forget.

[Marlene] Cops came up and they said,

"Girls, we need to take you over to the prison.

There's been problems."

We were right over across from Tower Seven.

Just as we were watching the door open,

the inmates had brought the body out.

Phyllis looked over and she said,

"Oh, my God, Marlene, I hope that's not anybody we know."

And it was her dad. We didn't know that at the time,

but it was her dad.

Wives and families of guards who were hostages

were starting to gather and they were asking uncomfortable questions.

[narrator] The warden knew entering the prison was the only way

to bring the mayhem to an end.

And he still had an ace up his sleeve.

Here's where the subterranean tunnel system comes into play.

Down the end of this hallway,

you can see a set of stairs that's going up.

Those are ones that goes up to the main entrance

where there's a metal door in the floor.

The negotiator and prison officials would have came down,

worked their way all the way to the end of this tunnel

to where the chapel is.

The tunnel was perfect 'cause you could secretly enter

from the outside

and end up right in the middle of the prison.

And right here is where they would have been,

both, the negotiators on this side,

the rioting inmates on the other side,

and they would have been talking to each other.

Meanwhile, National Guard forces

were gathering at a gymnasium just four blocks away.

The city switchboards were being overrun with calls,

some of them from as far away as London, England.

[narrator] Reporters descended on the town.

The eyes of the world were on Deer Lodge,

and no one knew how the riot was going to end.

Myles and his right-hand man, Smart, were holed up in the Southwest tower

of the 1912 Cell Block.

Now, this tower would soon become known as the death tower.

At about 4:45 a.m. on the 18th of April,

36 hours after the riot had began,

the National Guard sprang into action.

This tower here is where they had the National Guard with a bazooka.

-Over on the west side, I heard, boom! -[explosion]

It's where the first one hit, which was a little too high,

so then, they tried a second one, readjusting their aim.

-[explosion] -[Ray] And it came down and hit

the right side of the right window.

Firing bazookas, a weapon designed to take out tanks,

at a prison

seems like something straight out of an over-the-top action film.

As Myles and Smart were reeling from the explosion,

a team of guardsmen stormed the tower.

[narrator] Myles and Smart were found dead,

the result of a murder-suicide.

The guards taken hostage were rescued from their cells,

physically unharmed, but mentally scarred.

[Sascha] A lot of people stopped working at the prison after the '59 riot,

but for some, it was a lifestyle that they had no intention of giving up.

[narrator] The last few decades of the prison passed by relatively peacefully.

In 1974,

construction began on a new facility on the outskirts of town.

And five years later,

the last inmates at the old Montana State Prison were transferred.

Today, the prison has reopened to tourists,

with guides like Ray entertaining visitors

with stories of the incredible events that took place here.

[Linda] Deer Lodge has had a long and special relationship

with the prison.

And I imagine that the residents here are probably pleased

that this new chapter is a much more peaceful one.

[narrator] In the last frontier,

there's a set of ruins

which sparked one of America's greatest treasure hunts.

[Jim Geraghty] This is a place that not many people even in Alaska

are aware exists.

And yet, this was the beginning of

a tremendous industry.

This is Douglas Island,

and it's separated from Alaska's capital, Juneau,

by a body of water known as the Gastineau Channel.

[narrator] Rising out of the shallows

is a structure like no other.

[Martin K.A. Morgan] This is one of the weirdest abandoned buildings that I've ever seen.

There's no obvious way in or out.

There's a door, but the door's way up high.

Doesn't seem to be related to anything. What's it doing here?

[narrator] One clue lies in the thick temperate rainforest

on the island shore.

Hidden under the layers of vegetation are all these concrete buildings.

These structures are now just shells of the buildings that were once here.

They're clearly very old.

Among them, there's debris that suggests an industrial origin.

[narrator] Once, this was a glittering dream that put Alaska

on the world map.

[Dr. Greg Szulgit] People flocked here from all over

and they experienced things never seen before.

[narrator] But greed turned this rich landscape into a nightmare.

They weren't sure what was happening,

but a huge geyser of water shot up.

[narrator] Jim Geraghty is exploring a set of ruins

he's known since he was a boy.

[Jim] This was my playground.

My grandparents lived just down the street

and I was over here most days.

[narrator] Today, this is on the edge

of Juneau's growing suburbs.

But in 1880, when its story began,

it was a wild frontier.

But Alaska was about to change forever.

[Martin] The United States was dealing with this gold rush fever.

This is just 30 years after the heyday of the California gold rush.

People still know that fortunes can be made.

All you have to do is find the gold.

[narrator] With the precious metal running dry in California,

prospectors were hunting for their next payload.

And two men made a discovery here that would put this place on the map.

[Jim] They found gold in large quantities,

they said, that looked like peas and beans in size.

[narrator] Almost overnight,

others came wanting their share of the fortune.

Among them was John Treadwell.

[Martin] John Treadwell was a Canadian miner

who was working for a wealthy man in California.

[Greg] When he heard about the gold in Alaska,

he wanted a piece of the pie

and he headed north to seek his fortune.

Soon after arriving and buying his claim,

John Treadwell found gold.

[Martin] He dug down, discovered a motherlode.

But there was a twist.

[narrator] John's discovery began a chain of events

that would bring catastrophe to this island.

They had no idea how wrong it was going to go.

[narrator] In the late 19th century,

John Treadwell struck gold on his claim

on Douglas Island, Alaska.

But that's not all.

[Martin] He discovered a gold vein, but he discovered also

that that vein stretched beneath adjacent properties

that he did not own.

[Greg] Normally, when prospectors struck gold,

they would shout it from the rooftops.

But John Treadwell was much more clever. He kept his mouth shut.

He then consolidated as many claims as he could on the island.

[narrator] By 1882,

much of the gold vein was under John's control,

and excavations began.

This is the Treadwell goldmine complex.

This open pit here is the glory-hole of the Treadwell mine.

This was the first part of the mining.

After this, there were some much more extensive works underground.

[Greg] The ground became like a rabbit's warren of tunnels.

Some even went down as far as 2,500 feet.

That's a half a mile.

[Bell] At its peak, this place operated 24 hours a day

and processed 35,000 tons of ore a week.

It became the largest operating hard rock goldmine in the world.

[narrator] But key to its success

was a resource that would also bring about the mine's downfall.

[Jim] This building was the pump for the saltwater.

They would pump saltwater from the shore here at high tide

up into the mill to be used to process gold.

Water is used in the mining process after the ore is crushed down

and when you run the water through it, you can dissolve out gold.

[narrator] While the pumphouse kept the mine running,

no one could have predicted the engineering revolution

that this place would bring to Alaska.

Hidden underneath the blue mussels on the beach

is one of the narrow gauge rail cars.

But this would have run back and forth on the tracks here at Treadwell.

[Bell] The whole of the Treadwell mine complex

was really advanced for the time.

It even had Alaska's first railway.

[narrator] Despite the railway helping to make the mine profitable,

in 1889, John Treadwell did something unexpected.

John Treadwell got out while he was ahead.

He sold his business to a group of industrialists,

including the Rothschilds.

And he left with what would be the equivalent in today's money

of more than $40 million.

[narrator] The new owners put the mine in the control of a man ahead of his time.

[Bell] The running of the mine was taken over by Frederick Worthen Bradley.

He's considered one of the finest mining engineers

the world has ever seen.

In the 19th century, he would have been the equivalent of

Steve Jobs or Elon Musk today.

[narrator] But Bradley didn't just bring a technological revolution to Alaska.

It's something known well to local resident, Paulette Simpson.

[Paulette] Bradley wanted to take good care of his people.

And the Treadwell mine paid well.

In 1914, it was paying better than the Ford Motor Company.

[Bell] With wages of $100 a month,

the Treadwell mining complex attracted workers

from as far as Europe,

places like Scandinavia and Italy.

[narrator] Yet it wasn't just high wages

enticing workers to come to this desolate corner of Alaska.

[Martin] Bradley created this club wherein they could go,

cultivated the idea of a communal spirit

and keeping his workers happy,

the mine remained productive.

[Paulette] So the Treadwell Club was

like the community Y.M.C.A.

They showed movies,

there were Turkish baths,

a bowling alley. It had Alaska's first swimming pool.

[narrator] For nearly three decades,

this remote mine hit rich paydirt,

digging and refining almost 100 tons of gold.

But everything was about to come crashing down.

By 1917, the mine had gotten so deep

that they really weren't making any money

by going down deeper.

[Martin] In an effort to increase productivity,

they had mined into some of the load-bearing structures

that were below the surface.

[narrator] This decision turned the mine into a ticking time-bomb.

And it gave an ominous warning of the impending destruction.

[Paulette] When the ladies were swimming in the swimming pool one day,

all of a sudden, the water drained out of the pool.

The workmen came to see what was going on.

They sounded the alarm and they got all the miners out.

Water draining out of the swimming pool is a bad sign,

but I don't think anyone could have known where it was gonna go next,

because at that point, a huge geyser shoots up

out of the Gastineau Channel.

[Jim] Water started pouring in to the upper works

and soon became a torrent

and poured huge waterfall the size of Niagara

into the mines

for hours until everything was flooded.

[narrator] With the alarm having been raised in time,

miraculously, no one died during this disaster.

But for most of the Treadwell mine complex, the dream was over.

[Bell] One section of the mine avoided being flooded

and continued to operate for a few years.

But with the vein running out,

the final nugget of gold was removed here in 1922.

[narrator] Despite over a century passing since the closure of the mine,

its legacy is still found across the state.

[Greg] The mining industry is still going strong in Alaska.

It's currently worth about $4.5 billion a year.

[narrator] But tailings from the mines here

have transformed the landscape,

and today, it's a historical trail

enjoyed by the people of Juneau.

When we're walking over this nice sandy beach,

all of this is crushed to remove the gold.

If it wasn't for the mines, there would be no beach here.

We'd have a rocky shore.

[narrator] In New Orleans,

the origin story of a cherished part of American culture

lies in an unexpected place.

It was along this strip, a few orphaned buildings

where America's greatest gift to the world

really took shape.

[Dr. Kyle A. Thomas] We're really close to the French Quarter

and the heart of downtown New Orleans,

but this little area is just nothing but parking lots

and concrete.

Makes you wonder why any buildings have survived at all.

[narrator] Two forgotten structures

once attracted the city's most exciting performers.

[Dr. Corina Kwami] The cast of characters who frequented this street

make for a very impressive list.

[Linda] These are empty, abandoned-seeming spaces now,

but 100 years ago,

these would have been full of people having the time of their lives.

[narrator] For one world-famous musician,

it was on this street where everything began.

[John McCusker] They gave him the tool to carry out his dream.

Would be as important as the person

who first put a paintbrush in the hands of Picasso.

[narrator] In New Orleans,

one street hides the birthplace of a new musical genre.

John McCusker is a proud New Orleanian

whose curiosity about the musical history of his city

turned into a professional hunt for answers.

After decades of neglect during Hurricane Ida,

this structure went down.

This was owned by the Karnofsky family.

And if you look,

you can still see the tile from their old business, The Model Tailors.

[narrator] It was here that a famous name spent

some of his most formative years.

The Karnofsky family was a Lithuanian Jewish family

that lived in this area.

And they employed a young man that grew up here named Louis Armstrong.

Louis was the errand boy.

A young Louis Armstrong would not go on to be the person that he was

if he did not have the support

of his employer, the Karnofsky family.

[John] He would have dinner with them every day.

And after eating kosher,

they would sing Yiddish lullabies

to get the children to sleep.

Well, Louis doesn't understand a word of Yiddish.

Yet he wrote that, "I credit that Jewish family

with teaching me to sing from my heart."

[narrator] This is the 400 block of South Rampart Street.

A young Louis Armstrong stomping ground,

and once one of New Orleans' most important entertainment hubs.

[Kyle] You could find theaters, music halls, brothels, saloons,

all kinds of entertainment

that was largely enjoyed under the cover of darkness.

[narrator] When Louis wasn't with the Karnofskys,

there was a good chance he could be found on the corner of the block,

listening to the sounds coming from a now abandoned music venue.

Through here was the Eagle Saloon,

operated by Frank Dusen of the Eagle Band.

[Kyle] The Eagle Band was one of the most important and influential jazz line-ups

of all time.

[Corina] The list of musicians who at one point in time

played in the Eagle Band is super impressive.

I mean, it includes people like Bunk Johnson,

Sidney Bechet, Baby Dodds.

[narrator] The Eagle Band grew out of an earlier group

who played on the third floor of this building.

Their leader was Buddy Bolden.

[Kyle] Buddy Bolden. He's often considered by music historians

to be the inventor of jazz.

[John] If you came down here around nighttime,

you might hear a cornet blast from the third story of this building,

and that would be Buddy Bolden.

The responses of the crowd were very emotional.

They'd say, "Oh, play it, Mr. Bolden. Play it for us, Buddy."

[narrator] But this was also the site of a near tragedy

that could have changed the course of music history.

For a young Louis Armstrong, it was on the corner outside the Eagle Saloon

that a dramatic event occurred

that threatened not only his musical career,

but also his life.

[narrator] The date was New Year's Eve 1912.

Historically, the revelry of New Year's Eve

included noise, costumes,

and the shooting of guns.

When a couple of kids across the street pulled a gun

and fired into the air to mark the New Year.

Louis had also snuck a gun out of his house

and his friends knew he had it,

so when the kid across the street fired,

they said, "Get him, Louis."

So he pulled out his gun and fired it in the air.

[gunshot]

[Philip] Louis could have been killed by law enforcement officers,

but he was spared.

[Corina] He was arrested before being packed off

to a punishment home for wayward children.

[narrator] A 12-year-old Louis Armstrong

arrived at the Colored Waifs Home

and would spend 18 pivotal months here.

Well, Louis got his first major exposure to music education

while he was incarcerated,

and he eventually became leader of the Colored Waifs Home brass band.

On his release, Louis had just one thing on his mind.

Owning his own cornet.

And it was just a few steps away

from where he was arrested that his dream came true.

[narrator] The Eagle Saloon wasn't the only tenant in this building.

[John] Well, it was bustling. There were so many businesses here.

You had barrooms, a loan shop, a pawn shop.

This part of the Eagle Saloon

was part of Jake Itzkovitch's pawn shop.

And it was here that 14-year-old Louis Armstrong

first came to pick out a horn to have to play.

What an incredible moment in music history

and to be standing in the same space where that happened.

[narrator] Two doors down from the Eagle Saloon,

a new theater would be the place

where Louis first revealed his musical genius to the world.

This is foundational American history.

[narrator] South Rampart Street played a crucial role

in the birth of jazz

and the shaping of a young Louis Armstrong.

Beginning in 1914,

this was a solid bet to come and get entertained.

This was the Iroquois Theater.

They had silent movies and vaudeville performances.

These would all be rows of seats

just like you would have in any theater.

[Kyle] People could go and catch a variety of different kinds of acts,

everything from slapstick comedy

to Shakespeare, to trained animals and magic.

[John] They had talent shows at the Iroquois

and local performers would get up there and try out.

One of those people was little teenage Louis Armstrong.

And he got on the stage and did a little song and dance routine.

And he won the contest.

[Corina] In his later performances,

you can really observe the influence

of the vaudeville showmanship that he would have picked up here.

[inaudible]

[narrator] The Iroquois Theater and Eagle Saloon

left an indelible mark on Louis Armstrong

and inspired him to embark on a musical career

that would end up with him as one of America's greatest artists.

[Linda] In 1918,

Armstrong began working on the riverboats going up and down the Mississippi.

And this is where his music career really began to take off.

[narrator] Louis left New Orleans for Chicago in 1922

to join a band headed by Joe "King" Oliver,

an established musician he first heard play

at the Eagle Saloon.

However, for South Rampart Street,

its days as the city's top destination for entertainment were waning.

The 2,000-seat Lyric Theater

was beginning to siphon audiences off to the French Quarter.

[Kyle] Live performances at the Iroquois Theater

wound down sometime around 1920.

And it wasn't long after that the Eagle Saloon followed.

[Corina] By the 1950s,

South Rampart Street's days as an entertainment hub were over.

[Kyle] A combination of luck and passionate preservationists

saved these two buildings from destruction.

But they're largely still unused

and sit desolate, waiting for someone to do something with them.

[narrator] In 2021,

the Karnofsky building was destroyed by Hurricane Ida.

[Linda] This was a tragic loss for the city.

But this wasn't the end of this historic building's story.

[narrator] Drew Sparacia, through his historic real estate company,

is determined to preserve as much as possible from the rubble.

Knowing that these bricks are part of history,

we instructed our folks to clean them all

so we can use them in the reconstruction

of the historic Karnofsky shop.

[narrator] For the Eagle Saloon,

there are hopes it will soon be turned into a jazz museum,

and for the Iroquois to be reborn as a music venue.

But for now, they remain silent reminders

of a raucous and pioneering time

in American music history.

[John] They are our last monuments

to the place that gave us jazz.

The place that gave us Louis Armstrong.

[narrator] In what was once known as the Empire State of the South

lie the ruins of a place that thrust civilians

into the middle of a bloody conflict.

[Bell] We're in Georgia, just on the edge of metro Atlanta.

And there's this beautiful, tranquil wilderness.

It's like you step back in time from the bustling city.

This must be what this land was like before humans came here.

It feels incredibly unspoiled.

[narrator] Among the pristine forest hides a dilapidated building.

[Bell] This huge building looms over you.

It's completely in ruins.

It's like the skeleton of a brick structure.

[Michael Gardner] When I first came down here,

it was pretty amazing to see a structure like this

the architecture, aesthetic of it,

here out in the middle of the woods next to a beautiful creek.

Pretty astonishing.

[Katherine Alcock] It's perched right on the bank of the river,

almost like it could get swept away at any moment.

[Michele] This peaceful place hides a dark past.

Something that today would see commanders go to prison for war crimes.

[narrator] On the bank of Sweetwater Creek in Georgia,

the remains of a once imposing structure

still bear the scars of its cruel fate.

Park ranger Michael Gardner

is making sure its story is not forgotten.

[Michael] There's a lot of history here.

People harnessed water power to provide resources for the South.

They made a lot of money here.

[narrator] But the rise of this local industry was paid for in blood.

[Michele] The great cash crop that made Georgia

so economically powerful at the time

was picked by enslaved people, and it was cotton.

[narrator] In 1846,

construction began on a cotton mill

to process the fiber they called white gold.

[Michael] Back then, there was no heavy machinery,

so everything had to be animal-driven,

slaves made all the bricks by hand.

The granite you see, the walls here, that was all brought in.

[narrator] This is the New Manchester Mill.

[Katherine] Originally known as the Sweetwater Mill

after the creek it was built on,

the building was 48-by-120 feet, five stories,

and was said to be taller than any building in Atlanta.

[narrator] The mill grew so successful

that a company town was built around it.

[Bell] It became known as New Manchester,

home of the New Manchester Manufacturing Company.

This was a tribute to the British city

that was so central to the global cloth trade

that it became known as Cottonopolis.

[Michael] There was about 200 workers or so that worked in the mill.

They were self-sufficient. A lot of 'em had farms.

They had a general store.

[narrator] But in 1861,

the Civil War exploded into action,

providing the mill with a new opportunity that would prove to be

a double-edged sword.

[Katherine] At the beginning of the war, the Confederate Army placed an order

with the New Manchester Mill

or $25,000 worth of army uniforms.

[Michele] Although many prominent families associated with this mill

had Union sympathies,

their sons did not.

And these sons enlisted with Confederate forces

and they wore uniforms

made out of material from this very mill.

[narrator] Little did they know

this decision would seal their fate.

[Bell] Uniforms were one of the most important things

for the Confederate Army after food and weapons.

And so, cotton mills became high value targets

for the Union army as it advanced.

[narrator] By 1864,

the Confederacy was struggling,

and Atlanta's fall looked all but certain.

Union General William Tecumseh Sherman was on the offensive,

putting the mill in grave peril.

Sherman reached Atlanta.

They did have Confederate troops here,

however, they withdrew those troops to protect the city of Atlanta.

The only thing left here was the workers.

[narrator] The workers had no choice but to await their fate.

[Bell] Soldiers entered the factory,

pulled the drive belts out of the machinery

and removed the cloth and threads

from the looms and spindles.

Initially, it seemed to be a relatively peaceful takeover.

[narrator] But just as the mill workers thought they might be spared,

chilling new orders came from the top.

[Michael] The Union decided, "We'll just burn it down,

deny the Confederacy any assets."

Just up here you have some remains from that burn.

You can see some of the charred wood from where the flooring was.

[Bell] Sherman had ordered the New Manchester mill workers

to be kidnapped and deported to the North,

along with many others from across the South.

[narrator] Unknown to them,

the workers had been declared enemy operatives.

[Michael] The Union took them as P.O.W.s

or refugees, depending on whose side you wanna look at.

They marched them all the way to Marietta,

which is just north of here, and put them on boxcars,

sent 'em to Kentucky.

These civilians were essentially charged with treason,

but they were never tried in court.

[Michele] Once in the north, their situation did not improve.

There was no work, and many of the refugees died from disease,

starvation, and exposure.

Just a handful would return to Georgia after the war

and find their mill and small company town in ruins.

[narrator] Decimated and abandoned,

the mill surrendered to the forest around it.

Post-Civil War and during Reconstruction,

the building was just more or less forgotten about.

Throughout the years and decades later,

locals used it for target practice

or camping or recreation.

[narrator] But in recent years,

the ruins of the New Manchester mill

have served an unexpected industry.

[Michael] We've had a lot of film and TV productions done here,

Hunger Games, they filmed some scenes down here by the creek.

[Katherine] In Mockingjay - Part 1,

the mill is used as part of a bombed out landscape.

Ironically, during a rebellion of rural workers

fighting against the elite in the Capitol.

[narrator] Today, these ruins stand as a testament

to this region's incredible history.

But they will need a helping hand

to survive in Georgia's humid climate.

[Bell] Since 2016,

Georgia State Parks have taken steps to preserve the ruins

and prolong the life of the structure.

[Michael] Southerners' strength, apart from music and food,

is probably their connection with history,

all the good parts and all the bad parts.

So, to me, preserving this is an important piece of that

so people can learn from it.