We understand the situation with the Patterson Mill smokestack. We're not happy about the situation, but we do understand the safety concerns the Roanoke Rapids Graded School District had with the monolith, which crashed to the ground today under the expert supervision of Clements Mechanical.

We are losing our textile history. The way it ended is not savory, but it's history nevertheless and was our backbone, our livelihood and income source upon the founding of Roanoke Rapids.

Now a rational discussion of how to preserve what is left is mandatory. It is a discussion that must be met with vision, with leadership and courage that the history of our community is worth saving.

There must be forward thinking ideas thrown about by our leaders, a historical preservation society or committee must be formed and bodies from city council to county commissioners have to be involved.

Agencies from the economic development commission to Main Street to tourism to the chamber must involved.

There must be an effort made to seek out credible investors willing to make an endowment to make this happen. We cannot keep tearing down.

We have to begin discussing how we are going to build up.

City leadership did a formidable job when the Roanoke Canal Museum was built. That museum is a shining star and tribute to the wheels of industry upon which this area was founded.

The ongoing effort to delve deeper into the history of the canal is the same thing that must be happen with efforts to preserve our textile history.

It has happened in other areas and it can happen here if we approach the matter with the same passion as we did the Canal Museum.

We have photographically documented the demise of the Rosemary Mill in the years before this website was even born and still on weekends drive by to dwell on the monstrosity and eyesore it has become.

We failed to preserve that, instead we went sulking away, our few remaining mills now only holding the faraway, shrinking voices of Norma Rae, of union organizers, of hardworking people dead-set against its unionization. They are all but ghosts now.

In a city council workshop last year, we were asked what our thoughts would be. In the informal session we spoke up and said there has to be efforts made to preserve what it is left, especially the office across the street from the Rosemary Mill.

We watched today, somewhat sadly, as workers went about the task of securing cables around the 103-feet tower, a standing memorial to when some 8,000 people made towels, sheets and other products from King Cotton.

That it went down almost silently is perhaps some literary device that measures the true feelings of a majority of the population here, that it's better to forget than to remember.

We feel, however, that it's better to remember than to forget, that with a little creativity, some ingenuity and some shoes hitting the pavement, we can in some fitting way remember this important legacy and begin some rational discussions before another icon is leveled — Editor