I WAS JUSTTHINKING…Little-known African American behind creation of Mill City cotton mill near Fair Park

105-year-old writes book of memories of that Dallas community where she grew up

By: Norma Adams-Wade

Memories light the corners of my mind.

Misty, water-colored memories 

Of the way we were 

Song: “The Way We Were”

Lyrics by: Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Marvin Hamlisch

Singer: Barbra Streisand

For many, many decades, I have been drawn to the life story of an important figure in Dallas African American history that the general public has largely been deprived of knowing. 

His name is attorney Joseph Edwin Wiley Sr., founder of the African American community known as Mill City that housed the historic Black heritage cotton mill he created in the South Dallas/Fair Park community.

Who would have thought that a living, spunky, 105-year-old Pearl Etta McVey-Guthrie would give me the opportunity to more deeply explore Wiley’s life during McVey-Guthrie’s recent birthday celebration in Dallas? I pray you will enjoy learning more about them both as I did.

 I had the opportunity to read McVey-Guthrie’s unpublished memoir Mill City: Turning Back the Hands of Time that mentions Wiley and describes early 1900s life in the community he created. The author and family member said a friend had the manuscript and its many photographs printed and bound. Now the author said she hopes to find a publisher soon. 

The centenarian-plus was born and grew up in Mill City near Fair Park but now lives on the other side of the Trinity River in Oak Cliff. Her family and friends organized a drive-by birthday celebration on February 21, 2026, exactly 105 years after her February 21, 1921 birth in Dallas’ historic Mill City community. 

That historically-Black, disadvantaged community as such no longer exists. Instead, the area is now undergoing extensive revitalization from nonprofit groups seeking to offer and enhance economic opportunities and life-style enhancements. There also now are streets that pay tribute to the area’s history — Joseph Wiley Street and another simply called Mill Place. 

Pearl Etta McVey-Guthrie’s life story

McVey-Guthrie was one of three children of her parents, Grant L. and Peggy Margaret McVey, who lived on Frank Street near Fair Park in Dallas and where McVey-Guthrie lived throughout her childhood. She was inspired to write her memoir after a young relative asked her about her youth in the community. 

Wanting to give a complete answer about the neighborhood, the author said she went to the library but found very little of the information she sought. She said she decided to write down her own memories which turned into her book that she started when she was in her 80s. One main point was that she grew up being told that a respected Black lawyer started and operated a Black-owned cotton mill in her Mill City neighborhood.

In the memoir, McVey-Guthrie writes: “I was prompted to write these recollections of our lives in the neighborhood before the (Frazier Courts Housing ) projects were built. … so that you can visualize the loving and caring place that I can remember, where I grew up and called it home.”

Relatives and friends recall McVey-Guthrie as an anchor in her early community, known for her sharp mind and boundless energy. She taught counting and alphabets to preschoolers in the community, helped as a teacher’s aide in some schools, took in sewing projects, organized regular travel excursions for residents and school reunions for classmates. 

McVey-Guthrie’s daughter, Patricia Smith, 83, said her mother still communicates well – even though her hearing has greatly diminished over her extended years. To help communicate, relatives frequently write her notes which she reads and quickly answers. During my interview, the author’s daughter helped me write my brief questions which the author quickly answered.

“She said so many people did not know about Mill City,” Smith commented. “She said it seemed you could find something about every other place in Dallas but not Mill City.”

Joseph Edwin Wiley Sr.’s life story

Joseph E. Wiley Sr. moved to Dallas in 1885 after graduating from Union College of Law in Chicago, (now Northwestern University School of Law). Wiley is known as the first formally-educated African American lawyer in Texas. Historians say he is the second African American lawyer to practice in Dallas, behind the much-less-known attorney Samuel H. Scott who practiced here only six months in 1881. 

Also, as an African American, Wiley is best remembered for founding Mill City and New Century Cotton Mill — purposely to advance African American economic achievement in Dallas. 

And further, Wiley mentored and became law partners with the now legendary younger early African American attorney John L. Turner Sr. for whom the historic J. L. Turner Legal Association in Dallas is named. 

Over scores of years, Turner’s fame in Dallas soared and remains. Wiley’s not so much. 

Wiley was born to farming parents in Albany, Ohio in 1862, a year before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed to end slavery, although southern states continued slavery till 1865. 

Wiley, one of his parent’s eight children, first attended Oberlin College in Oberlin near Cleveland Ohio, then Union College of  Law. 

Besides being an attorney with a downtown Dallas office on Elm Street then Main Street, Wiley also was a real estate investor, notary, and editor of the little-known Dallas Enterprise newspaper. 

How cotton mill started and disappeared

Historians say Black workers built the cotton mill building, that all mill workers were Black, but a number of prominent Anglo investors contributed money and business advice. 

Notable was Wiley’s collaboration with legendary educator Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee University who contributed financially to the attorney’s effort to create the all-Black cotton mill. Researchers mention prominent African American and Anglo leaders of that era as supporting Wiley’s cotton mill crusade. 

 Wiley also was a leader in various local and national African American organizations. Equally important was his leadership as an African American during the tortured history of segregation in the State Fair of Texas’ formative years. Wiley made history helping to create the 1901 Dallas Colored Fair at the South Dallas/Fair Park fairgrounds. He was a key player in the Fair’s “Colored People’s Day,” with parades, exhibits, and sports events on the one day that African Americans were allowed to attend the State Fair in the early 1900s and years after.

Wiley married Texan Ruby C. Banks and they had four children. Unfortunately, in Dallas, Wiley’s legacy essentially is forgotten. The mill opened in 1902, operated under serious financial challenges for several years, and closed in 1907. 

The Wiley family eventually left Dallas, and he tried business ventures in New Albany, Indiana. His notoriety faded. There are no known photographs of him, and his date of death is unknown.

Mill City’s revival efforts continue

McVey-Guthrie is aware of the ongoing Mill City revitalization efforts by various nonprofits and a new generation of activists. Groups include The Real Estate Council (TREC) and its Catalyst Project: Mill City initiative, Urban Specialists, Builders of Hope Community Development Corp., Innercity Community Development Corp., Zan Wesley Holmes Jr. Community Outreach Center, and Mill City Community Association. 

While these groups continue to pour energy and money into Mill City, the centenarian-plus applauds all efforts to continue the service she gave to her old community.

“I’ve never thought about my death, even though my mother died at age 45,” McVey-Guthrie said. “I’ve always had my hands in something, whether it’s a cruise, crossword puzzle, or serving. … I don’t know for sure why God has spared me. But I’m sure glad He did.”

And in honor of her absent hero Joseph Edwin Wiley Sr. I urge us all to dig to learn more about his service and deep yearning for a better life for our people. For all that he did accomplish, this forgotten man deserves to be remembered.

Summary of McVey-Guthrie’s book

The memoir — titled Mill City: Turning Back the Hands of Time – details aspects of post-World War II African American life in the Mill City community near Fair Park. The author is seeking a publisher.

Here are some details of the memoir’s content:

1)About early 1900s, trailblazer African American attorney Joseph Edwin Wiley Sr. who created his pioneering Mill City Cotton Mill to provide jobs and self-worth for local Blacks. 

2) Various photos and descriptions of that era’s household necessities, including coal heaters for warmth, coal oil lamps for lighting, #3 tin tubs for bathing, ice boxes, “ice men” selling ice throughout neighborhood, water pumps, smoothing irons heated on stove top burner, water buckets with dipper in school classrooms for drinking water because there was no plumbing. 

3) Once popular, scenic Wahoo Lake and park — now gone. Replaced by Juanita J. Craft Park on Spring Avenue, not far from Wiley’s cotton mill. Residents enjoyed fishing, picnics, Juneteenth celebrations. Memoir displays early photos of residents relaxing at now bygone lake. 

4) Opening of Julia C. Frazier Elementary School in 1930s and construction of Frazier Courts Housing Projects — built in 1940s on portion of land where cotton mill previously stood. 

5) Lists of names of Mill City streets, families who lived there, businesses and services once there that provided residents all needs during segregation that barred them from such services outside community.

6) How residents handled frequent flooding in area from creek that flowed into Wahoo Lake. 

7) Practices wherein few if any neighbors locked their doors, and family members could sleep on back porches to catch evening breeze. 

8) Recollections and photos of youth and family recreation activities, including baseball, school-sponsored hayrides, fun of students daily walking to and from school, and families to and from various destinations because few if any families owned cars. 

9) Common feature of neighborhood railroad tracks and harmless, friendly “hobos” who would hitch train rides, jumping off when they reached their destination. 

10) Describing Jim Crow-era practice of separating races while riding streetcar lines – whites in front, Blacks in back.

11) Descriptions and photos of neighborhood churches with histories and leaders,  and description of full day of worship with services from morning till night. 

12) Other descriptions include Black culture funerals, using party-line phones, paying poll taxes to vote, birthing babies in home, Black people being segregated to balcony when they viewed movies at popular downtown Majestic Theatre, built some year as author’s birth, 1921. 

13) Recalling that children were taught “proper manners,” including how to act respectfully when adults present. 

14. Author listed names of various well-known African American business and civic leaders who had lived in Mill City. … She even includes some favorite childhood era poems; i.e.

poet George W. Childs’ “The Alabaster Box:”  “Do not keep…your love and friendship sealed up until your friends are dead…kind things you mean to say when they are gone, say before they go.”

Dallasite Norma Adams-Wade is a Texas Metro News senior correspondent, The Dallas Morning News retired writer, and a National Association of Black Journalists founder.