Belton Farmers Co-op Gin

Duane's take

The marker's the one doing the talkin' here, and I'm just Duane, passin' it along. Now settle in, because this one's about brick, and cotton, and a stretch of Central Texas creek bank that saw more than its share of history. We're talking about the Belton Farmers Co-op Gin, standin' along Nolan Creek in Bell County, and friend, the fact that it's still standin' at all is most of the story right there.

Built in 1927, this gin is a rare surviving brick cotton gin in Central Texas. Rare. You hear that word and you start to understand what you're looking at.

Most of the cotton gins that went up in this region were frame structures, clad in wood or sheet metal, built fast and built cheap, and most of them are long gone. But this one. This one was built different.

Load-bearing common bond brick walls, two stories tall, rectangular, with a sheet-metal hipped roof and a small cupola perched near the center. The kind of building that was meant to last. And here's where the story gets a little dramatic before it even gets going.

The gin was built by an association of local cotton farmers to replace an earlier gin that had burned down on that very same site in the 1920s. They came back to the same spot, and this time they built it in brick. Make of that what you will.

Now, why Belton? Well, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Belton was the center of cotton processing, commerce, and shipping for all of Bell County. The whole county's crop was flowing through this town.

And then, after World War II, the gin was closed. That's how these stories tend to end, quietly, after the work was done. But the building stayed.

Brick has a way of outlasting everything else, including the industry that built it.

What the marker says

THE BELTON FARMERS CO-OP GIN, BUILT IN 1927 ALONG NOLAN CREEK, IS A RARE EXAMPLE OF A SURVIVING BRICK COTTON GIN IN CENTRAL TEXAS. IT WAS BUILT BY AN ASSOCIATION OF LOCAL COTTON FARMERS TO REPLACE AN EARLIER GIN THAT HAD BURNED DOWN ON THE SITE IN THE 1920s. DURING THE LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURIES, BELTON WAS THE CENTER OF COTTON PROCESSING, COMMERCE, AND SHIPPING FOR BELL COUNTY. WHILE MOST COTTON GINS BUILT IN THIS REGION WERE FRAME STRUCTURES WITH WOOD OR SHEET METAL CLADDING, THE BELTON FARMERS CO-OP GIN IS MADE OF LOAD-BEARING COMMON BOND BRICK WALLS. THE 2-STORY RECTANGULAR BUILDING HAS A SHEET-METAL HIPPED ROOF AND A SMALL CUPOLA NEAR THE CENTER. AFTER WORLD WAR II, THE GIN WAS CLOSED. RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARK - 2012