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Swing Shift

Issue: 
October 2009

For more than two decades, mill workers across the region played in a league of their own

Blanketeer Mark Ferguson holding the 1949 National Baseball Congress Western District championship trophy with executive H.T. Rindal and manager Bud Shaney of the runner-up Berkeley team.
A Berkeley cap.
The Enka Rayonites and Berkeley Spinners pose for a photo before the 1953 WNC Industrial League season opener.
Swannanoa’s Beacon Mill, which produced blankets for the U.S. military during World War II, appropriately named its team the Blanketeers.
A scorecard dated May 11, 1956.
Asheville’s McCormick Field hosted Industrial League championship games.
Dewey Hunnicutt in 1954.
Photographs courtesy of Dewey Hunnicutt. Photograph (aerial view) courtesy of North Carolina collection, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, NC.