Recollections - Legends of Yesterday: The Cotton Gins

This is a reprint of original articles by Hugh Woolley, a longtime resident and community leader of Graceville. Woolley published these articles in The Graceville News more than 20 years ago.

Originally published in the November 22, 2001 edition of The Graceville News.

When I came to Graceville in 1948, cotton was still King in the south. Graceville had two operating gins, the Kirkland Gin, located in Ole Town and the Hand Gin, located on L&N Railroad in New Town. The Big Four (owners) had replaced the Hand Gin with a newer model in the late 1930's. Later Mr. Claude bought out his partners.

Nobody describes this better than Dr. Jerry Windsor in his History of Graceville. Dr. Windsor says he depended on the Grace Notes for his early history.

Let me urge you, if you don't have a copy of Dr. Windsor's book, buy one while you can, there may be a shortage after the Centennial Celebration in March 2002. I obtained two copies for my children. They make good Christmas presents. Many facts about Graceville are recorded in this history. The following article on Cotton is from Dr. Windsor's history, pages 23- 24.

An early cotton gin in the Graceville area was at Collins Old Mill on Holmes Creek. It was built about 1895 and was a water powered gin. The capacity was three bales of cotton per day and the lint was pressed into bales by the use of a wooden screw press powered by a motor. There are people in Graceville today who remember two very active gins in Graceville and remember as children going to the gin and playing on the bales of cotton.

Picture view from 6th Avenue, probably around 50 years ago. Dudley Register, ginner, is standing in the left corner of the picture above. This gin still stands and was bought and last operated by C.R. Franklin and family.

The first gin in Graceville was probably the hand fed, wood burning, steam-powered gin constructed by the town founder and his son. Captain H. B. Grace and his son Dr. George M. Grace built a gin in 1883 on the northeast corner of White and Brown Streets. Dr. Grace was a practicing medical doctor in Graceville at the time and thereby hangs a tragic story that ends in triumph.

One day while helping to operate the gin, Dr. George M. Grace had his right arm caught in some machinery and his arm was so mangled it had to be amputated at the elbow. Dr. Grace learned to roll pills, pull teeth, and perform surgery with his left hand. When he needed a surgery assistant, he had his son Willie Grace assist him. There is no surprise that Willie himself later became a doctor and set up practice in Fort Myers.

Later Monroe Kirkland and Pat Hand built gins in Graceville. The Kirkland Gin was on White Avenue across from the old Grace Gin, and the Pat Hand Gin was on Cliff Street near the railroad track. In 1923 there were 12,000 bales of cotton ginned in Graceville.

The so-called "big four" of Graceville bought the Kirkland Gin and two years later bought the Hand Gin. The four who dominated the gin scene were Claude Tindel, Charles Liddon, J.J. Jones, and Ezra Patterson. These men used the ginning business as a financial spring- board for numerous other enterprises in the Graceville area.

These two gins served customers in eleven counties. They worked under the name of the Graceville Gin and Warehouse Company. This company was formed in 1937 and it was not unusual for literally hundreds of wagons to be waiting to be unloaded. Hamburgers and cokes were passed out at the gin three times a day. Iced drinks were kept in the office and on a hot day a trip to the gin, a hamburgers, and an ice-cold coke were the answer to life's immediate problems.

In 1951, 6,000 bales of cotton were ginned in Graceville. In 1952, 7,000 were ginned. In 1953, one-half of the total Florida cotton crop was ginned in Graceville. Boll weevils, over production, government intervention, pests, and synthetic fabrics soon spelled the demise of King Cotton in Graceville. Now, after 40 years on the wane, cotton is once again on the rise. A new cotton gin was built between Campbellton and Marianna in 1992.

As the boll weevil made his grand entrance from Mexico in 1914, his infestation spread across the South. Actually, this beetle that feeds on the silky fibers inside the cotton seed pods or bolls crossed the Mexican border into Texas in about 1892. But with armadillo speed, it took about 20 years before the snout beetle hit the cotton plants of this area. It was a mixed bag of results. The coming of the boll weevil forced many off the farm, but also brought crop diversification. The citizens of Enterprise, Alabama, seemed to have the best overview of the situation and in December 1919, erected a monument "in profound appreciation of the boll weevil and what it has done as the herald of prosperity."

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