Burton Cotton Gin Festival
Alice and I visited a classmate and her husband this past weekend at Burton, Texas. Have you ever been to Burton? It is kind of easy to miss on your way to Houston. Burton is just off highway 290 a few miles this side of Brenham. Burton has a population of a little less than 400 peaceful residents. Its been said before, in cases like this, “…and one old grouch.” I didn’t meet him. The big doings in town Saturday was the Burton Cotton Gin Festival. The streets were full of folks being royally entertained with all kinds of fun activates. The parade made this little town proud. They even had a children’s bike parade. I felt the star of the string of passing memorabilia was a green and black, 1932 Ford Coupe with the “rumble seat” full of pretty girls. I thought that would get your attention. A tractor pull was popular, as well as all the arts and crafts lining the streets. And music was constant and varied. There was country and western pickers, barber shop singers, blue grass bands, and the Winedale German Singers performing all day and into the night.
But the star attraction of the three-day celebration is the cotton gin. The gin was built in 1914 and christened “Burton Farmers Gin.” It ran the first 11 years with steam power. The next 23 years the gin was powered by a 125 horsepower, 16 ton, two cylinder, Bessemer, diesel oil engine. In 1963 the big “Lady B” engine was retired and electric motors did the task until the gin closed in 1974, due to the lack of cotton being raised in the area. Then in 1992 a dedicated group of concerned citizens worked long and hard restoring the gin, and putting “Lady B” Bessemer engine back into working condition.
Each year since, the town of Burton has sponsored the “Cotton Gin Festival” so folks can once again experience the thrill of seeing a bale of cotton produced. At about 3pm Saturday, the whistle sounded, just like it did many years ago, calling the farmers to bring their cotton, for the gin was ready. And like, “back then” they came running to see the picked cotton, vacuumed into the “ginning stands” to have the seed removed. Soon the cotton was compressed into a 500-pound bale, wrapped in burlap, tied with steel bands and dumped onto the floor for all to see. A cheer went up and the air filled with applause as the bale was ready for us all to inspect.
Next year, about the third weekend of April, you might enjoy going to Burton, Texas for the “Burton Cotton Gin Festival.” And, if you run into that one old grouch, that lives there, tell him hello for me. I’m still glad I didn’t meet him.
December 14th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Hello, thanks for the good “Burton Cotton Gin Festival” post. Would it be possible, that i can write a story about this post in our local newspaper? I would be really happy if i can do this and i will give you a link from a german blog too. Please answer. Greetings Goldpreise