High Cotton: Burton gin, museum is window into past production

By MONETTE TAYLOR | South Central Texas Edition

A big attraction at the Burton Cotton Gin and Museum is the 125-hp Bessemer engine; orginally installed in 1925. It is the largest operating combustion engine of this vintage in the southern United States. The "Lady B," as it is called, was idle for 20 years before it was overhauled in January 1991. -- Staff photo by Carolyn Rost

August 19, 2004 - Just as we thought we could trust history books, we stopped by the Burton Cotton Gin and Museum in Burton and learned a varied account.

Eli Whitney is credited for coming up with the first cotton gin, yet Henry Ogden Holmes is said to have come up with the same, basic idea about the same time. Whitney is in the history books, basically, because he got to the patent office first.

Burton Cotton Gin and Museum volunteer tour guide Bill Neinast of Burton, and Executive Director Marcela S. Stegemueller, shared some literature about the historical event. The U.S. Patent Office hadn't been created when Whitney and Holmes came up with the idea for "mechanically removing cotton lint from the seed."

While each filed the necessary "caveats" on their ginning process ideas, it was attorney Whitney who managed to get the patent first. Strange thing ... what he patented was Holmes' device of using saws, rather than the nails driven into a drum Whitney developed. Originally, the patent was for a "cotton engine," and throughout the years, "engine" was shortened to simply "gin."

Marcela S. Stegemueller, executive director of the Burton Cotton Gin and Museum, shows a few of the interesting, and locally-created, displays at the facility. -- Staff photo by Carolyn Rost

As most Texans are aware, Texas is the leading cotton production state in the United States, followed by Georgia and Mississippi. In Texas, Washington County was the number one cotton producing county for many years, and the German population who settled in the county called the plant "baumwolle," the German word for "tree of wool," because the bolls of cotton on the plants reminded them of wool.

During the 1920s, '30s and '40s, there were about 40 cotton "gins" in Washington County, according to Neinast. Today, there are two. Before World War II (WWII), many of the county's residents were farmers, with the entire family contributing to the success of the cotton farms. After WWII, many of the younger farm family members decided it was much easier to work for someone else for eight hours a day, rather than bother with cotton. Larger cotton farms were sold off to smaller producers, and the trend has continued until the present time.

The original cotton gin was built as a "co-op" gin by 14, mostly German, farmers in 1913. The first bale of cotton was ginned in 1914, with the power supplied by a steam engine until 1925.

At that time, a Bessemer Type IV, twin cylinder, diesel oil engine was brought in to replace the steam engine. This Bessemer, named the "Lady B," was in operation until 1963, when it was replaced by an electric motor. The Bessemer was kept as a backup through 1974, when the gin closed. Now, the "Lady B" is a featured attraction of the gin museum.

Neinast shared that it takes 1,500 pounds of seed cotton (fresh-picked cotton) to make a 500-pound bale of cotton. Eight hundred pounds of those 1,500 pounds is seed, and the remaining 200 pounds are trash and moisture. The Burton Gin is a "5/80" gin, which means there are five "stands," each having 80 saws which are used to separate the cotton lint from the seeds.

To put technology into perspective, the saws in the Burton Gin revolve at 750 rotations per minute (RPM), while modern gins spin at 1,500 RPM, with the RPM of the brushes, used in some to help separate the lint from the seeds, reaching 2,500.

Several interesting facts concerning the use of 500 pounds of ginned cotton relate that the textile industry can produce 300 pairs of men's jeans, or 1,217 men's t-shirts, or 764 men's dress shirts from that bale. Women aren't left out, with the 500 pounds producing 896 women's blouses, or 542 women's shirts ... or 210 cotton bed sheets.

"Operation Restoration," a plan to restore the 10-acre, five-building cotton business complex back to its original glory, was started in 1987 - 13 years after the last cotton was ginned there in 1974. One of the major Burton Gin restoration advocates is Doug Hutchinson, who was, originally, from Burton, Ohio. After a career in Austin, Neinast said Hutchinson stopped in Burton on a trip, and decided to settle there.

Once "Operation Restoration" started, the property was cleaned up and basic restoration was accomplished. Fund-raising efforts to continue the gin's restoration continue.

On Feb. 29, 1992, Stegemueller said "the entire town cheered" upon hearing the Bessemer engine fire up, and to this day, the engine is started up several times a year.

Stegemueller noted it would be better if the engine was started monthly, but more volunteers are needed to make it happen. While there is a big following and appreciation of the gin/museum, the little town of under 400 population is seeing the same problem of other towns ... volunteers are, mostly, retirees, but understandably so. The younger generation is busy with jobs and young families, but some still manage to help with the tours and the operation of Lady B.

Once a year, a Cotton Gin festival is held on the grounds, usually in April, with the 2005 festival scheduled for April 15-17. It is complete with a parade, antique farm equipment, horse drawn buggies and vintage automobiles; plus food, crafts and a carnival.

One event at the festival that draws a big crowd, yearly, is the antique tractor pull.

Another is the building that, originally, housed the Otto and Annie Wehring Shoe Shop, a leather specialist who could produce anything out of leather, and at an estimated $900 a year, made the couple a middle-class business and provided money for college for all their children, according to a Wehring relative.

"This museum is not a resting place for dead technology, but, instead, it is often alive with the roar of its machinery and bustling activity. In these vital surroundings, younger generations can experience the ginning of cotton as it was done for so many years," said Larry Jones of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Indeed, some cotton is planted, especially for use in the museum, to make sure that today's generation remembers the process - from plant to fabric.

Finally, one thing that still amazes Stegemueller and the group of volunteers is when they receive calls asking what "cotton gin" tastes like. Guess those callers are not from Texas!

(For more information: www.cottonginmuseum.org or 979-289-3378.)