The Empire Laundry company was once one of the largest of it's kind in Montgomery, Alabama. They had, at their peak, eight locations across the city second only to their main competitor, Capital City Laundry who operated out of eleven sites. L.D. Rouse established the Rouse Laundry in 1907 and by 1909 had bought out the Empire Laundry Company, deciding to keep the name. The company operated from that site until 1929 before moving to a new modern facility, with the company by that time operating under the name Empire-Rouse Laundry. The company advertised themselves as being able to wash a car load of laundry for 10 cents a pound, thanks to their 'floating roll' type machinery. Empire-Rouse boasted that the machinery cost in excess of $10,000 to install and only the second of it's kind in the south. L.D. Rouse passed away in 1956 with ownership of the company passing over to his son-in-law, Clement Fitzpatrick.
By the turn of the 1950s, Empire-Rouse had become little more than a coin-operated laundromat as, due to the increase in competition with more companies opening around the city, they simply couldn't keep up. The company eventually folded (ba-dum tish) and now no longer exists.
This particular building was constructed in 1948, with some evidence to suggest it was owned for a very short time by Empire-Rouse. By the end of the first year though it was being run by a company called Lorren Cleaners. By the 1980s the building had been bought by Davis Cleaners, another company with multiple sites, operating here as a one-hour dry cleaners. In 2009 Davis Cleaners closed for good, and nothing has been done to the building since. We found a brand new notice pinned to the boarded front door informing the owners (ironically, the State of Alabama), that the building needs urgent work to stop it deteriorating further as it's becoming a public safety issue, and if the works aren't done the building will be demolished. Inside is a terrible mess with some cool machinery left, the main floor of the laundry has been filled with all sorts of rubbish as well as the clothes left behind after it closed. It looks like it's been closed a lot longer than 13 years if you ask me.
The story is far from over though. Across the street, on the opposite corner of the intersection, is a second much larger industrial dry cleaners.
Capital City Laundry was established in 1887 as Capital City Steam Laundry. Originally owned by the Tatum brothers, it was quickly bought out by William Tatum - the elder brother - with the name shortened to Capital City Laundry. In 1895 it was announced the company would be shut down due to increased competition in the city, but it continued operating under the same name and from the same place just with a new owner. Shortly after that, it was bought out by Empire Laundry. Charles Milton Smith was born in 1869 and moved to Montgomery in 1890, where a close friend recommended he take a job at Empire Laundry, managing the newly acquired Capital City Laundry. By 1899 he'd found and secured a new location for the growing business which relocated there from it's original site, and a month later he bought the entire plant from Empire Laundry and became the sole proprietor of Capital City Laundry. At the company's height they owned eleven locations throughout the city with their main location (and subject of this post) being acquired in 1959, although the oldest part of the building dates back to 1938 when it was built for Troy Laundry. By the 1990s, Capital City only operated out of two locations having been beaten down by their competition, and eventually the large building here was bought out by Davis Cleaners, who continued to operate the site under the Capital City name until it closed in 2008, a year before the Davis Cleaners site opposite also closed.
Closure of these locations was down to a number of factors - the dozens of unanswered and unresolved complaints, the repeated break-ins at both locations resulting in thousands of dollars worth of customers clothes going missing, but there was a much bigger overarching factor which led to the closures. In 1993 it was discovered that a large area of groundwater under the west of downtown Montgomery had been heavily contaminated, so much so it was officially declared a superfund site after the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) became involved. Initially it was thought this was due to the Montgomery Advertiser printworks being the sole culprit, however the Montgomery Advertiser ran their own tests and did their own digging and stated that the fuel stations and numerous dry cleaners were also responsible for the contamination. In July 2020 sufficient cleanup and decontamination had been done to facilitate the removal of the groundwater plume from the superfund site list, however the heavily contaminated ground surrounding and under the Capital City Laundry building means it is still listed as a superfund site - in 2015 the EPA removed all of the original machinery and cleaned up the factory area however the ground pollution wasn't addressed.
Although the machinery has been removed, this place is home to thousands and thousand of items of clothing left behind after closure. Some had tags on them dating all the way back to the 1980s, so many of them must have been stored in the upstairs areas for decades until it closed.
Thanks for looking
By the turn of the 1950s, Empire-Rouse had become little more than a coin-operated laundromat as, due to the increase in competition with more companies opening around the city, they simply couldn't keep up. The company eventually folded (ba-dum tish) and now no longer exists.
This particular building was constructed in 1948, with some evidence to suggest it was owned for a very short time by Empire-Rouse. By the end of the first year though it was being run by a company called Lorren Cleaners. By the 1980s the building had been bought by Davis Cleaners, another company with multiple sites, operating here as a one-hour dry cleaners. In 2009 Davis Cleaners closed for good, and nothing has been done to the building since. We found a brand new notice pinned to the boarded front door informing the owners (ironically, the State of Alabama), that the building needs urgent work to stop it deteriorating further as it's becoming a public safety issue, and if the works aren't done the building will be demolished. Inside is a terrible mess with some cool machinery left, the main floor of the laundry has been filled with all sorts of rubbish as well as the clothes left behind after it closed. It looks like it's been closed a lot longer than 13 years if you ask me.
The story is far from over though. Across the street, on the opposite corner of the intersection, is a second much larger industrial dry cleaners.
Capital City Laundry was established in 1887 as Capital City Steam Laundry. Originally owned by the Tatum brothers, it was quickly bought out by William Tatum - the elder brother - with the name shortened to Capital City Laundry. In 1895 it was announced the company would be shut down due to increased competition in the city, but it continued operating under the same name and from the same place just with a new owner. Shortly after that, it was bought out by Empire Laundry. Charles Milton Smith was born in 1869 and moved to Montgomery in 1890, where a close friend recommended he take a job at Empire Laundry, managing the newly acquired Capital City Laundry. By 1899 he'd found and secured a new location for the growing business which relocated there from it's original site, and a month later he bought the entire plant from Empire Laundry and became the sole proprietor of Capital City Laundry. At the company's height they owned eleven locations throughout the city with their main location (and subject of this post) being acquired in 1959, although the oldest part of the building dates back to 1938 when it was built for Troy Laundry. By the 1990s, Capital City only operated out of two locations having been beaten down by their competition, and eventually the large building here was bought out by Davis Cleaners, who continued to operate the site under the Capital City name until it closed in 2008, a year before the Davis Cleaners site opposite also closed.
Closure of these locations was down to a number of factors - the dozens of unanswered and unresolved complaints, the repeated break-ins at both locations resulting in thousands of dollars worth of customers clothes going missing, but there was a much bigger overarching factor which led to the closures. In 1993 it was discovered that a large area of groundwater under the west of downtown Montgomery had been heavily contaminated, so much so it was officially declared a superfund site after the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) became involved. Initially it was thought this was due to the Montgomery Advertiser printworks being the sole culprit, however the Montgomery Advertiser ran their own tests and did their own digging and stated that the fuel stations and numerous dry cleaners were also responsible for the contamination. In July 2020 sufficient cleanup and decontamination had been done to facilitate the removal of the groundwater plume from the superfund site list, however the heavily contaminated ground surrounding and under the Capital City Laundry building means it is still listed as a superfund site - in 2015 the EPA removed all of the original machinery and cleaned up the factory area however the ground pollution wasn't addressed.
Although the machinery has been removed, this place is home to thousands and thousand of items of clothing left behind after closure. Some had tags on them dating all the way back to the 1980s, so many of them must have been stored in the upstairs areas for decades until it closed.
Thanks for looking
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