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100% COTTONCOTTON
IN TEXAS
Production, Gins, Scales and Cotton-Related Articles |
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
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 CoxBaled
in a Bale by Mike Cox 9-11-09
Though
most of the ginning is done by brainless machinery, the industry’s human element
has developed a colorful folklore with a range of subsets. But no ginning story
can top the occasional tale of a body in a bale.Bagdad
by Mike Cox
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
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, TexasWaxahachie:
Where Cotton Reigned King (book review) Our
Buick Pickup Truck by George Lester
We had cotton plants growing on either
side of the BuickCotton
Days in Flomot | | IMAGES |
Cotton
Gins
A
cotton gin gets a new life
by Bob Bowman 6-14-09
Thanks
to the Depot Museum at Henderson, a cotton gin has now taken its place among other
relics of the pastCotton
Gins in Texas: Series Four
8-27-09Cotton
Gins in Texas: Series ThreeCotton
Gins in Texas: Series Two
Ten
vintage postcards from the William Beauchamp CollectionCotton
Gins in Texas: Series One
Nine
vintage postcards from the William Beauchamp CollectionAftonAmmannsville
old cotton ginBagby
Gin and Crew, 1912Belmont
GinBledsoe
4-15-09 Burton
Cotton GinDime
Box old cotton gin Earth
Cotton Gins 9-2-09EchoEl
Oso Old Cotton Gin 5-7-09Estacado
8-5-09 Friendship
GinFunston
Cotton Gin
Gainesville
Cotton GinGoodlett
6-23-09Goree
5-15-09Hamilton
Old Cotton Gin 9-4-09Inadale
Gin Ira's
GinLorenzo
8-6-09 Luckenbach
old cotton gin Maple
3-9-09NolanNoodle
Old GinOaks
4-29-09Otto
5-19-09 What
is left of the cotton gin in OddsPoint
(no photo)PrincetonRalls
Cotton Gin
9-18-09Robstown
6-25-09Rosebud
cotton ginSanta
RosaShiro
old cotton ginSodville
Farmers Gin Co
7-27-09The
Tarzan GinWalburg
old ginWillamarWilmeth
Cotton ArtifactsEstacado
8-5-09 Claude
- Cotton ScaleRalls
- Cotton Boll
9-18-09
Cotton Fair
Texas
Cotton Palace, circa 1909
Cotton Fields
MackayNew
SwedenOdem
9-6-09 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 Cotton
Scenes in Texas: Series Four
10-28-09Cotton
Scenes in Texas: Three
3-15-09Cotton
Scenes in Texas: Two
12-22-08Cotton
Scenes in Texas 11-23-08
AbileneNew
Boston street sceneMarshall
- "Hauling Cotton to Market"Rockdale
post office mural
5-8-08
Cotton Trucks &
Wagons
BallingerBremondSealyThalia
9-15-09
Cotton
Weigh Stations
Calvert |
 | 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 |
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| | Cotton
gin in oil, by Boyer Gonzales, Jr., c. 1937. Anyone knowing the location, please
Email jbaker1@suddenlink.net.
- James and Kimel Baker |
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