Cotton Gins

The following is from John Black's Pictorial History of Honey Grove, Texas

The entire economy of Honey Grove depended upon the cultivation of cotton and the labor of farmers, and nothing symbolized the importance of agriculture to the economic well-being of the city more than the cotton gin.

The cotton gin symbolized the commercial value of cotton.  Here the farmer ginned his cotton.  The cotton seeds were usually the first cash of the season - the money from the sale of the cotton seed usually paid for the ginning of the cotton and the baling of the cotton with some left over for the farmer.  A decade earlier, seeds not needed for planting would have been burned or dumped into ditches to cut down on soil erosion.  When manufacturers of margarine, shortening and other industrial products learned the value of extracts made from cotton seeds, the seeds that had once been waste products of the ginning process were of more value than the lint itself. . . . The cultivation of cotton controlled the very rhythm of life even in the city of Honey Grove.