Tag Archives: Georgia Cotton

Musella Gin & Cotton Company

This is a classic Cadillac, perhaps a 1949 model.

Farm Building, Jenkins County

This was likely part of the Brinson farm.

 

Farmers Cotton Warehouse, Circa 1900, Toomsboro

In the early 1900s, this place would have been quite busy during the cotton harvest and was as important as the local bank in the economic life of this community. As the sign notes, it was owned by B. H. Jackson.

Sycamore Gin, 1952, Turner County

Grady Moore Sconyers, a successful local entrepreneur, built this gin in 1952, after establishing Turner County Frozen Foods a few years earlier.

Bill Adams writes: When I was approximately 14 years old I spent the summer with Aunt Bert (Henderson) & Cortez and Grady Sconyers. Grady was in the process of building this new Continental Gin. It was powered by a water cooled two cylinder vertical diesel engine in the South end of the building. The engine stood approx. 8 ft high with a ladder to a catwalk at the top. A water vat outside the SE corner of the building cooled the water. North of the engine room were three gins in a row, the overflow room, and two baling presses. Power from the engine was supplied by overhead shafts and belt pulleys. The original building had a shed type roof across the front of the building. The suction tube to unload the trucks was under this roof. There was a concrete loading ramp on the North end by the baling presses. At the start up, I drove a wagon with a pair of mules hauling bales from the ramp around to Gradys’ warehouse at the NE corner of Railroad and Willis Street where they were weighed, and samples taken. In back of the gin was a cotton seed storage building(the seed was blown from the gin to the building). This was considered “state of the art” in the 1940′s.

Planter’s Warehouse, Circa 1903, Unadilla

One of Georgia’s most attractive cotton warehouses, Unadilla’s Planter’s Warehouse was earlier owned and operated by W. B. Hodges and Frank Giles as Giles and Hodge Farm Center. It, along with all of Unadilla’s historic commercial district, should be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. I hope such an effort is underway.

Williams Cotton Warehouse, Plains

Plains Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Winged-Gable Farmhouse, Tattnall County

I’ve photographed this house for seven years (as of 2016).

It’s an amazing survivor, though I fear its days are numbered.

Cotton Mill Girls, Tifton, 1909

Photograph by Lewis Hine; Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Public Domain

Lewis W. Hine‘s  (1874 – 1940) photographs are credited with bringing to the national consciousness the plight of child laborers in early twentieth century America. Social historians consider these images a major influence on much-needed child labor reform.

W. R. Groves Cotton Warehouse, Byromville

This has been an active warehouse since at least the 1930s.