DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — the story of a town that almost had everything. Before 1848, settlers had already put down roots in a spot in Freestone County that folks would come to call Cotton Gin. That name didn't happen by accident — Dr.
J. S. Wills established a mule-drawn gin right there on that ground, and a community began to grow up around it.
By 1851, the year Freestone County itself was organized, Cotton Gin had its own post office. Things were looking up. Dr.
Wills even gave a full block of land for a courthouse, making his pitch clear as a bell — he wanted Cotton Gin to be the county seat. The voters, though, had other ideas. They declined.
That right there was the first crack in the dream. But Cotton Gin didn't fold. Not yet.
At its peak, this little town had three churches. A good school. A newspaper.
A Masonic Lodge. Stores. Saloons.
The kind of place where you could tend to your soul on Sunday, your mind on Monday, your business on Tuesday, and your thirst on any night you saw fit. Then came the 1870s. The Houston and Texas Central Railroad was pushing through the region, and when the rails went down, they went down a few miles to the west.
Not through Cotton Gin. Around it. And that, as they say, was that.
The business interests didn't linger. They left. The stores, the saloons, the newspaper — the whole living weight of a town — drifted toward the rails, the way iron always pulls things toward itself.
What remained was quiet. Cotton Gin became a ghost town, and the marker out there on that Freestone County road puts it plainly: Cotton Gin illustrates the fate of hundreds of early Texas towns bypassed by railroads, highways, and industry. Hundreds of them, all across this state.
Towns that had churches and schools and somebody who believed in them enough to give away a block of land. The railroad just never came their way.
What the marker says
Settled prior to 1848, when Dr. J. S. Wills established a mule-drawn gin here. Post office was founded in 1851, the year county was organized. Dr. Wills gave a block of land for courthouse, but voters declined to make Cotton Gin the county seat. Town had 3 churches, a good school, a newspaper, a Masonic Lodge, stores and saloons. In the 1870's when Houston & Texas Central Railroad built a few miles to the west, business interests left here. Cotton Gin illustrates fate of hundreds of early Texas towns by-passed by railroads, highways and industry. (1967)