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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 CoxBagdad
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 Three 5-2-09Cotton
Gins in Texas: Series Two 10-10-08
Ten
vintage postcards from the William Beauchamp CollectionCotton
Gins in Texas: Series One 12-31-07
Nine
vintage postcards from the William Beauchamp CollectionAfton
6-1-07Ammannsville
old cotton ginBagby
Gin and Crew, 1912Belmont
Gin
7-24-08Bledsoe
4-15-09 Burton
Cotton GinDime
Box old cotton gin Echo
4-21-08 El
Oso Old Cotton Gin 5-7-09Friendship
GinFunston
Cotton Gin
Gainesville
Cotton GinGoodlett
6-23-09Goree
5-15-09Inadale
Gin Ira's
GinLuckenbach
old cotton gin Maple
3-9-09Nolan
5-1-07Noodle
Old GinOaks
4-29-09Otto
5-19-09 What
is left of the cotton gin in OddsPoint
8-12-07 (no photo)Princeton
12-8-07 Robstown
6-25-09Rosebud
cotton gin 1-12-07Santa
Rosa
4-24-08Shiro
old cotton ginThe
Tarzan GinWalburg
old ginWillamar
8-4-08 Wilmeth
5-12-07
Cotton ArtifactsClaude
- Cotton Scale 1-17-08
Cotton Fair
Texas
Cotton Palace, circa 1909
Cotton Fields
MackayNew
SwedenSpunky
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: 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
BallingerBremondSealy
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 c. 1937.
Anyone knowing the artist or location, please contact
us.
Photo courtesy James and Kimel Baker | |
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