DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I wouldn't change a word. Now, if you drove through Greenville, Hunt County, and somebody told you there used to stand the world's largest inland cotton compress right here — you might nod politely and drive on. But friend, you'd be making a serious mistake.
Because on September 30, 1912, something happened at that compress that is either the most impressive thing you've ever heard, or the second most impressive, and I challenge you to name what beats it. Two thousand and seventy-three bales of cotton. One ten-hour day.
Hand-trucked, pressed, and loaded into rail cars at a rate of three bales a minute. Three. A.
Minute. You let that settle in. And here's the part that tends to quiet a room.
Before the invention of lifts and tractors, every single ounce of that labor was done by skilled Negro workers. Each man pushing a five-hundred-pound bale and truck — not at a walk, not at a trot — at a dead run. Hour after hour after hour, moving to the relentless pace of work chants.
That rhythm wasn't decoration. That rhythm was the machine. W.
B. Wise was the superintendent — described on the marker itself as an expert manager of labor. W.
T. Williams served as assistant. D.
M. Love was the engineer. They had a record to set, and on that September day, they set one that apparently nobody saw fit to take from them.
And what were they pressing? Blackland area cotton — cotton that the spinners of England regarded most highly at the time. Most highly.
The finest mills across the Atlantic wanted what came out of this patch of Texas ground, and Greenville was the place it got pressed and shipped. World's largest inland press. Record-setting day.
Five-hundred-pound bales at a dead run, kept honest by the rhythm of a chant. Some records, you put them in a book. This one, they put it in iron and stone right there in Hunt County — and it's still standing there, daring you to do better.
What the marker says
Once world's largest inland press. Set record for most bales pressed in 10-hour day (Sept. 30, 1912), when 2,073 bales were hand-trucked, pressed, and loaded in rail cars at rate of 3 a minute. Before invention of lifts and tractors all labor was done by skilled Negro workers, each man pushing a 500-pound bale and truck at a dead run, moving to relentless pace of work chants. W. B. Wise, an expert manager of labor, was superintendent; W.T. Williams, assistant; D. M. Love, engineer. This Blackland area cotton was then regarded most highly by spinners of England. (1971)