FAYETTE HERITAGE MUSEUM TO HOST EVENING OF COTTON STORIES

  

The Fayette Heritage Museum and Archives in La Grange is inviting the public to an evening focused on the cotton stories and history of Fayette and Washington Counties.

The program is being held Thursday, August 8, at 6:30pm in the meeting room at the rear of the Fayette Public Library in La Grange.

Steph Jarvis, who is the director of the Texas Cotton Gin Museum in Burton, will be the guest speaker.

Jarvis is working on a project to map local cotton gins as part of an effort to preserve the cotton history that is woven into the community.

The 1890 United States Agricultural Census recorded Fayette County as the fourth largest cotton producer in Texas with 88,208 acres of cotton.

Also, cotton gins were built every 5 to 8 miles apart keeping farmers from having to travel too far to gin their cotton.

Jarvis, along with the museum and archives staff, are hoping that local citizens with knowledge of the local gins will attend next week’s program, and help map out the sites in Fayette County.

The Fayette Heritage Museum maintains a database of Texas cotton gins from 1825 to present day.

They also have a large collection of photographs of cotton gins that will be displayed, including some that have not yet been identified.