 Within a few years, he and his brother-in-law Samuel A. Carter purchased the cotton factoring business, changing the name to Carter and Bradley.The company soon expanded by adding a wholesale grocery department and began to manufacture a high-grade fertilizer for the farmers who grew cotton.In 1895, Bradley bought his brother-in-law's share of the business, and changed the name of the company to the W.C. Bradley Co. Over the next five years Bradley bought Eagle & Phenix Mills and founded the Columbus Manufacturing Company, two of the largest textile mills in the South.