81R9081 MMS-D
By: Kolkhorst H.C.R. No. 71
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The State of Texas has customarily recognized a
variety of official state symbols as tangible representations of
the state's historical and cultural heritage; and
WHEREAS, The Burton Cotton Gin & Museum, in Burton,
Washington County, is home to what is believed to be the only
restored gin of its time period in the United States that remains in
its original building, on its original site, and that operates with
equipment that was in the facility when the gin closed; beyond its
uniqueness, this plant represents a significant chapter in Texas
agricultural and economic history; and
WHEREAS, First grown in Texas by Spanish missionaries, cotton
became an important source of income in the state in the 19th
century and has remained a significant part of the state's economy;
Texas has led the nation in cotton production in almost every year
since 1880, and the state's annual cotton harvest today constitutes
approximately a quarter of all the cotton raised in the United
States; the largest cash crop in Texas, cotton has been designated
the official State Fiber and Fabric; and
WHEREAS, Beginning in the 1870s, cotton culture in Texas
expanded dramatically: between 1869 and 1879, the number of bales
produced in the state rose from approximately 350,000 to more than
800,000, and by 1900 the number of bales reached more than 3.5
million; this soaring volume placed a heavy strain on the existing
gins and their mode of operation; even if steam engines were used
instead of animals to power the gin machinery, manual labor was
still needed to shift the cotton from one operation to another, and
as cotton harvests increased, impatient farmers were forced to wait
in ever longer lines at the gin; and
WHEREAS, To cope with the upsurge in production, Robert S.
Munger, of Mexia, devised a radically new process that became known
as system ginning; over the period from 1883 to 1892, he created
pneumatic technology that would move the cotton in a continuous
manner, directly from the wagon to the gin stand and then to the
baling press; modern-day cotton gins still use the process that he
pioneered; and
WHEREAS, Though highly successful, Mr. Munger's technology
was too expensive for a single individual to install, and so local
farmers would establish associations to build system gins; in 1913,
a group of Burton agriculturists, most of them German Texans,
incorporated to construct and operate the Burton Farmers Gin;
designed by the Lummus Cotton Gin Company, the gin relied on Mr.
Munger's pneumatic system, together with special air-blast
equipment to doff lint from the gin saws; and
WHEREAS, During the 1920s, the mechanization of cotton
harvesting necessitated the addition of still further machinery at
the Burton gin, in order to remove the increased volume of trash
from the seed cotton; the total power requirement then exceeded the
capacity of the gin's original steam engine, and the latter was thus
supplanted in 1925 by a Bessemer Type IV diesel engine with 125
horsepower; after that engine failed in 1963, it was replaced by an
electric motor, though the diesel engine was repaired and kept as a
standby power source; and
WHEREAS, The Burton Farmers Gin operated from 1914 to 1974,
by which time cotton production in the area had almost wholly given
way to the raising of livestock; efforts by local citizens to
preserve the gin and return it to its 1930s condition began in 1986;
as part of the initial phase, the complete gin records, which
chronicle cotton production and sales by area farmers as well as the
history of the physical plant, were indexed and archived; later,
staff from the Smithsonian Institution assisted with the
restoration of the gin's Bessemer engine, the "Lady B," which is
considered to be "the largest operating internal combustion engine
of [its] vintage in the southern United States," and one of the
"few, if [indeed there are] any, engines of this age and horsepower
in operation outside of a museum"; and
WHEREAS, Today, the Burton Farmers Gin constitutes the main
structure in the nine-acre complex known as the Burton Cotton Gin &
Museum; the gin itself is open for tours year-round and is activated
twice a year, during the Cotton Gin Festival in April and the First
Bale Celebration in October; listed on the National Register of
Historic Places, the Burton Farmers Gin has also been designated a
Texas Historic Landmark by the Texas Historical Commission and a
National Historic Engineering Landmark by the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers; and
WHEREAS, A key element of the cotton industry, gins were once
a fixture in countless rural Texas communities and a fundamental
part of their local economy; today, the Burton Cotton Gin & Museum
evokes that earlier time and offers a rare window into a critical
technological advance, one that continues to benefit the Lone Star
State; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the 81st Legislature of the State of Texas
hereby designate the Burton Cotton Gin & Museum as the official
Cotton Gin Museum of Texas.