“Gentlemen: We have yours of the 30th – and regret to find that the two mattresses shipped (to) you some days ago, were too short. This is our regular length mattress and we do not understand this unless your bed is a special size—in this case, we do not feel that we are responsible but if you will ship these back to us, we will make you two more.” So wrote B. F. Warren, Secretary and Treasurer of the Mebane Bedding Company, Inc. August 1, 1907, to Glencoe Cotton Mills.

Further correspondence indicates that Glencoe likely didn’t allow the mattresses the time they needed to return to their proper length after being rolled for shipping.

Good customer service wasn’t The Mebane Bedding Co.’s only positive trait, they quickly became industry leaders in manufacturing and the use of new materials. When they were known as the Mebane Royall Co. their best-

selling mattress was called the “Kingsdown”. As a marketing device, they painted the name on the sides of their delivery trucks and the company’s name as we know it today was born.

Hundreds of Mebanites and multiple generations of the same families have worked at Kingsdown. Some, like Jane Holt Bailey’s family, go back four generations to her GreatGrandfather Joseph Alfred Holt. Her Grandfather, Father, and Uncle followed Joseph into the company with the last, William Alfred Holt, Jr. to retire in 1995. As Jane put it recently; “It put food on our tables for many generations and it’s in our blood.”

The work they did, the machines they built, the sounds of their feet on the old building’s wide, wooden floors may be gone, but its history remains. Right now, it’s on exhibit at the Mebane Historical Museum until late July of this year.

This program is free and open to the public.