Texas 2009 - 81st Regular

Texas House Bill HCR49 Compare Versions

Only one version of the bill is available at this time.

Old	New	Differences
1	1	81R2692 MMS-D
2	2	By: Kolkhorst H.C.R. No. 49
3	3
4	4
5	5	CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
6	6	WHEREAS, The State of Texas has customarily recognized a
7	7	variety of official state symbols as tangible representations of
8	8	the state's historical and cultural heritage; and
9	9	WHEREAS, The Burton Cotton Gin & Museum, in Burton,
10	10	Washington County, is home to what is believed to be the only
11	11	restored gin of its time period in the United States that remains in
12	12	its original building, on its original site, and that operates with
13	13	equipment that was in the facility when the gin closed; beyond its
14	14	uniqueness, this plant represents a significant chapter in Texas
15	15	agricultural and economic history; and
16	16	WHEREAS, First grown in Texas by Spanish missionaries, cotton
17	17	became an important source of income in the state in the 19th
18	18	century and has remained a significant part of the state's economy;
19	19	Texas has led the nation in cotton production in almost every year
20	20	since 1880, and the state's annual cotton harvest today constitutes
21	21	approximately a quarter of all the cotton raised in the United
22	22	States; the largest cash crop in Texas, cotton has been designated
23	23	the official State Fiber and Fabric; and
24	24	WHEREAS, Beginning in the 1870s, cotton culture in Texas
25	25	expanded dramatically: between 1869 and 1879, the number of bales
26	26	produced in the state rose from approximately 350,000 to more than
27	27	800,000, and by 1900 the number of bales reached more than 3.5
28	28	million; this soaring volume placed a heavy strain on the existing
29	29	gins and their mode of operation; even if steam engines were used
30	30	instead of animals to power the gin machinery, manual labor was
31	31	still needed to shift the cotton from one operation to another, and
32	32	as cotton harvests increased, impatient farmers were forced to wait
33	33	in ever longer lines at the gin; and
34	34	WHEREAS, To cope with the upsurge in production, Robert S.
35	35	Munger, of Mexia, devised a radically new process that became known
36	36	as system ginning; over the period from 1883 to 1892, he created
37	37	pneumatic technology that would move the cotton in a continuous
38	38	manner, directly from the wagon to the gin stand and then to the
39	39	baling press; modern-day cotton gins still use the process that he
40	40	pioneered; and
41	41	WHEREAS, Though highly successful, Mr. Munger's technology
42	42	was too expensive for a single individual to install, and so local
43	43	farmers would establish associations to build system gins; in 1913,
44	44	a group of Burton agriculturists, most of them German Texans,
45	45	incorporated to construct and operate the Burton Farmers Gin;
46	46	designed by the Lummus Cotton Gin Company, the gin relied on Mr.
47	47	Munger's pneumatic system, together with special air-blast
48	48	equipment to doff lint from the gin saws; and
49	49	WHEREAS, During the 1920s, the mechanization of cotton
50	50	harvesting necessitated the addition of still further machinery at
51	51	the Burton gin, in order to remove the increased volume of trash
52	52	from the seed cotton; the total power requirement then exceeded the
53	53	capacity of the gin's original steam engine, and the latter was thus
54	54	supplanted in 1925 by a Bessemer Type IV diesel engine with 125
55	55	horsepower; after that engine failed in 1963, it was replaced by an
56	56	electric motor, though the diesel engine was repaired and kept as a
57	57	standby power source; and
58	58	WHEREAS, The Burton Farmers Gin operated from 1914 to 1974,
59	59	by which time cotton production in the area had almost wholly given
60	60	way to the raising of livestock; efforts by local citizens to
61	61	preserve the gin and return it to its 1930s condition began in 1986;
62	62	as part of the initial phase, the complete gin records, which
63	63	chronicle cotton production and sales by area farmers as well as the
64	64	history of the physical plant, were indexed and archived; later,
65	65	staff from the Smithsonian Institution assisted with the
66	66	restoration of the gin's Bessemer engine, the "Lady B," which is
67	67	considered to be "the largest operating internal combustion engine
68	68	of [its] vintage in the southern United States," and one of the
69	69	"few, if [indeed there are] any, engines of this age and horsepower
70	70	in operation outside of a museum"; and
71	71	WHEREAS, Today, the Burton Farmers Gin constitutes the main
72	72	structure in the nine-acre complex known as the Burton Cotton Gin &
73	73	Museum; the gin itself is open for tours year-round and is activated
74	74	twice a year, during the Cotton Gin Festival in May and the First
75	75	Bale Celebration in October; listed on the National Register of
76	76	Historic Places, the Burton Farmers Gin has also been designated a
77	77	Texas Historic Landmark by the Texas Historical Commission and a
78	78	National Historic Engineering Landmark by the American Society of
79	79	Mechanical Engineers; and
80	80	WHEREAS, A key element of the cotton industry, gins were once
81	81	a fixture in countless rural Texas communities and a fundamental
82	82	part of their local economy; today, the Burton Cotton Gin & Museum
83	83	evokes that earlier time and offers a rare window into a critical
84	84	technological advance, one that continues to benefit the Lone Star
85	85	State; now, therefore, be it
86	86	RESOLVED, That the 81st Legislature of the State of Texas
87	87	hereby designate the Burton Cotton Gin & Museum as the official
88	88	Cotton Gin Museum of Texas.