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  Texas : Features / Images : Cotton

100% COTTON

COTTON IN TEXAS
Production, Gins, Scales and Cotton-Related Articles

NEW
Cotton Gins in Texas 12-31-07
Vintage postcards from the William Beauchamp Collection
Cotton bale medallion in Fort Worth

Long before oil, cattle, and timber, cotton was the Texas economy. Only ten years after Moses Austin received his first grant of land, cotton made up $353,000 of the $500,000 of exports that year.

When Southerners moved to Texas, they planted what they knew - cotton. During the Civil War it was Texas cotton moved to Mexico down the "cotton road" that provided the only lifeline to the Confederacy. After the civil war former slaves became free sharecroppers - but the crop still remained cotton.

From .31 per pound in 1865 to only .05 per pound in 1898, cotton prices ruled the Texas economy.

By 1910 half of everything planted in Texas was cotton. By 1928 they had figured out how to irrigate the Panhandle and 17,000,000 more acres were planted.

Here are personal stories of cotton picking and images of artifacts of the cotton industry in Texas. Cotton Gins, harvesters, scales, boll burners, and warehouses. Cotton festivals, "first bale" celebrations and cotton "as art" in murals and architectural details.

© John Troesser


Anyone wishing to share stories, memories or photos of cotton in Texas, please contact us.


3-1-04

Featured Cotton Articles

  • The Boll Weevil by Archie P. McDonald
    Tex Ritter sang this lament decades ago:
    “Oh, the boll weevil is a little black bug, come from Mexico they say, come all the way to Texas, just looking for a place to stay, just looking for a home, just looking for a home.” And the weevil, actually a beetle, found it, much to the chagrin of East Texas cotton growers.
  • Cotton Picking by Mike Cox 1-11-07
  • Bagdad by Mike Cox 4-3-07
    Cotton, the economic life blood of Texas and the Confederacy, soon made its way to Bagdad by riverboat, ship or ox-drawn wagons. From the Mexican port, it could be shipped to Britain and other European markets.
  • Napoleon Bonaparte Wiess by W. T. Block 11-23-07
    Steamboat Captain and Confederate Soldier.
    The epics of William and Napoleon Wiess, which contributed to the cotton steamboat history of East Texas.

  • Cotton Farming in Verhalen, Texas 1-11-07
  • Waxahachie: Where Cotton Reigned King (book review)
  • Our Buick Pickup Truck by George Lester
    We had cotton plants growing on either side of the Buick
  • Cotton Days in Flomot
  • IMAGES

    Cotton Gins

  • Cotton Gins in Texas 12-31-07
    Nine vintage postcards from the William Beauchamp Collection
  • Afton 6-1-07
  • Ammannsville old cotton gin
  • Bagby Gin and Crew, 1912
  • The Burton Cotton Gin
  • An old cotton gin in Dime Box
  • Echo 4-21-08
  • Friendship Gin
  • Funston Cotton Gin
  • Gainesville Cotton Gin
  • The Inadale Gin
  • Ira's Gin
  • The old cotton gin in Luckenbach
  • Nolan 5-1-07
  • Old Gin at Noodle, Texas
  • What is left of the cotton gin in Odds
  • Pawnee 12-12-07
  • Point 8-12-07 (no photo)
  • Princeton 12-8-07
  • Rosebud cotton gin 1-12-07
  • Shiro former cotton gin
  • The Tarzan Gin
  • Old Gin in Walburg
  • Wilmeth 5-12-07


    Cotton Artifacts
  • Claude - Cotton Scale 1-17-08


    Cotton Fair
  • Texas Cotton Palace, circa 1909


    Cotton Fields

  • Mackay
  • New Sweden
  • Spunky Flat School surrounded by young cotton
  • Vattmann - School house, church and cotton field
  • An oil well being drilled in the middle of a cotton field


    Cotton Oil Mills
  • Itasca Cotton Oil Mill, 1932


  • Cotton Production
  • Chapman Ranch - Cotton picker in action, compactor and cotton bale.


    Cotton Scenes
  • Abilene
  • New Boston street scene
  • Marshall - "Hauling Cotton to Market"


    Cotton Trucks & Wagons
  • Ballinger
  • Bremond
  • Sealy


    Cotton Weigh Stations

  • Calvert
  • Waxahachie: Where Cotton Reigned King, book cover Waxahachie: Where Cotton Reigned King
    by Kelly McMichael Stott
    Photographs Courtesy of The Ellis County Historical Museum
    Arcadia Publishing's The Making of America Series. December 2002
    Cotton gin in oil c. 1937.
    Anyone knowing the artist or location, please contact us.
    Photo courtesy James and Kimel Baker
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