Mount Enterprise
Cotton Gin
The fuel that fired Texas's economy was first and always cotton. Texas cotton was of a finer grade than that grown elsewhere in the South, and it commanded higher prices in Liverpool and other European exchanges.
The cotton business grew fast during statehood. The state crop in 40,000 bales in 1848, 110,000 bales in 1854, and in 1860, Texas produced 420,000 bales.
In Rusk County, cotton was the main cash crop and was considered lega·ltender. Cotton mortgages were given on growing crops. Henderson was the center of cotton commerce in Rusk County with a cotton com press and an 0il mill. The compress squeezed the locally ginned bales into smaller bales for shipment. Cotton compresses were usually located in port cities. The cottonseed oil mill extracted oil from the seed and cottonseed meal used for fertilizer and cattle feed.
More than fifty cotton gins were operating in the county in 1900. The gins began operating in August and September and would run full blast twenty-four hours a day until all the cotton was processed.
Turner Gin was the last operating gin to close in 1963. The cotton industry died in Rusk County because of worn-out land, the inability to compete with irrigated West Texas cotton, and the international cotton market.
The Mt. Enterprise Gin was the last one in Rusk County with all the equipment in place. The gin was in a large two-story building with a side room for the oil engines.
In May 2006, the Mark F. Barts family donated the Mt. Enterprise cotton gin to the museum. In November 2007, a foundation was laid, and in January 2008, the cotton gin was moved to the museum grounds. William Ashby, chair of the Rusk County Historical Commission then, was instrumentally involved. After the equipment arrived, volunteers quickly began putting the pieces together. Painting the gin stands and motors was also done at this time.
As no blueprints or plans were available for the gin equipment or the construction of the building, volunteers under the direction of Edgar Partin of Partin Construction had to work from memory. The original building had to be dismantled to remove the equipment and place it on the new slab before the new building could be built around it. The gin was built in the exact footprint of the original gin. Large windows around the structure have been added for viewing and interpreting the gin. The gin stands are a Munger Gin model manufactured by the Continental Gin Company in Dallas, Texas. The engines are the 70-horsepower Anderson Oil Burner type.
This building has a Rusk County Historical Commission Marker.