emerged in Nebraska as more people began purchasing clothes
instead of making them in the home. One of the oddest
undertakings in Nebraska manufacturing history was an immense
cotton mill built at Kearney. Construction of the Kearney Cotton
Mill began in the fall of 1890. The Cumnock brothers, successful
Eastern cotton manufacturers, agreed to locate a mill in Kearney
in return for substantial subsidies. The mill ran for nine
years, every year at a loss. The owners declared that it was not
the distance from Texas cotton, not the necessity of importing
coal, nor even the sparsely settled distributing territory, but
the want of cheap labor that forced the closing of mill. Harlan
Brown founded Brown Sheep Company, Inc., in Mitchell, as a way
to add value to the wool he already produced. In 1980 Brown
bought spinning equipment from a mill in South Carolina, and six
months later produced the first ball of yarn. The first year was
dedicated to perfecting one line of single-ply, one hundred
percent wool yarn known a