Cotton gins played role in Gonzales County history

He stirs from the bed in the pre-dawn light of this July day. The breeze has awakened him.

Making his way to the kitchen, he puts on the coffee. He thinks for a while of all the work to be done today – and hopes he can accomplish it all.

He pours the hot coffee into his cup, and heads down the hall to the front screen door, closing it quietly behind him to not awaken the rest of his family. He sits in his chair on the front porch and sips the coffee.

The morning breeze is deceptive – it will be hot again today. The field birds are chirping. That means no rain today. That’s good, he thinks. He needs a few more days to get the cotton to the gin.

Just as the clock in the hallway starts to chime the six o’clock hour, he turns his head to listen for the whistle. TOOT! There it is. Wake up, Monthalia. The steam whistle at the Siepmann’s cotton gin is starting a new day. TOOT! It is time to bring the cotton to the gin.

We don’t grow cotton anymore in Gonzales County. I don’t know if that is good or bad. There was a time when cotton was a vital part of our economy – when many families in Gonzales County depended on cotton to make a living – to exist.

There used to be cotton gins all over Gonzales County. It seems that there was a gin at every crossroad. Not really. In 1931, there were 34 licensed gins in the county – licensed by the Texas department of agriculture.

There were cotton gins in Monthalia, Bebe, Cost, Wrightsboro, and Smiley. To state the location of the cotton gins is to call the role of all the communities in Gonzales County.

Leesville, Belmont, Harwood, and Waelder. There were four gins in Gonzales, three in Nixon. There was a gin at Dilworth, Dreyer, Glaze City, Slayden, Ottine, and Cheapside.

In 1926, there were a little over 38,000 bales of cotton ginned in Gonzales County. This number dropped to around 4,800 by 1936 and then to a few hundred in the 1940s.

Where did the cotton go? Well, maybe several factors. The economic depression of the 1930s. If the cotton farmer cannot borrow money to buy seed and fertilizer, he cannot put in the crop.

Market conditions were a factor. Too much cotton means low prices. Low prices mean you don’t plant.

Mechanization was coming to agriculture. Farmers with large tracts of land and big pieces of equipment could produce cotton more efficiently.

The sharecropper or tenant farmer could not compete by planting the small tract and using hand labor.

Later came World War II, and our young men and women went to war. Others went to San Antonio to work at the Air Force bases or to Houston to work in the shipyards. The labor force of the county was declining.

And after that came acreage quotas and finally, cotton allotments.

The cattle industry was growing, and the crop land was turned into pasture. Cotton was a labor-intensive crop. Not as much labor was needed to run cattle.

I remember in the mid 1940s when some of my classmates did not start the school year at the same time the rest of us did. They stayed home until the cotton crop was in. The family needed the help of the children to pick the cotton. Is that what we call the “Good Old Days?”

I remember in the early 1950s seeing the wagons lined up at Dawe’s gin in Gonzales. Dawe was the last gin to operate in Gonzales County.

The wagons were pulled by horses, mules, or by tractor.  Occasionally, maybe a small truck with side boards bulging. They were backed up from the gin to St. Joseph Street, and then south toward the river bridge, bringing the crop to town on Saturday.

He stepped off the porch and walked over to the field. He stood there watching the cotton leaves wave in the breeze. Looks like a good crop, he thought. Maybe a real good crop.

He remembers standing there two years ago – when it did not rain. He planted twice that year, hoping it would rain. It did not. He remembers the feeling he had then. That feeling in his stomach – how would he provide for his family? How would he make it?

Standing there with a feeling of despair – a feeling of hopelessness, recognizing that it was all beyond his control, knowing he owed the bank so much money.

No, we don’t plant cotton anymore in Gonzales County. We hear only in our hearts the whistle from Siepmann’s gin.

And in our minds eye, we stand at the end of the field, after a day of hard work, and we look upward, and we hope.

And that is part of our history. The history of Gonzales. Gonzales, Texas is the Birthplace of your Texas Freedom.