Belton Farmers Co-op Gin
Belton, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
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
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1927 along Nolan Creek, the Belton Farmers Co-op Gin replaced an earlier gin that had burned on the site. Where most central Texas gins were frame buildings, local cotton farmers who owned this one built it of load-bearing brick, a two-story structure topped by a hipped metal roof and small cupola. It stands as a rare survivor from the years when Belton was the hub of Bell County's cotton trade, closing only after World War II.
Why it matters
A cooperatively owned brick gin captures both the cotton economy that defined central Texas and the way farmers banded together to control their own processing.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Muehlhause House
Belton, TX
German immigrant Fred Muehlhause reached Texas in 1885, married Louise Albrecht in 1892, and worked as a craftsman shoemaker before opening the Belton Shoe Shop downtown in 1906. A respected civic leader, he was elected city alderman in 1907 and had builder James M. Scott construct this Queen Anne residence in 1908 to his own written specifications, complete with a spring-fed limestone cistern. The house and its carriage, wash, and smoke houses stayed in the family until 1992.
Missouri, Kansas & Texas (Katy) Railroad Bridge
Belton, TX
When the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad bypassed Belton in 1881, townspeople refused to be left off the map and arranged for a spur into the city. The Katy Railroad arrived in 1882, bridging the Leon River and turning Belton into a shipping hub for Central Texas cotton growers. Around 1900 the line replaced its earlier wooden trestles with this riveted-steel Parker truss, a workmanlike specimen of early 20th-century bridge engineering still standing over the river.
Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway Planing Mill
Belton, TX
Built in 1912 at the Santa Fe rail yards in Temple, this planing mill turned out replacement wooden parts for the railroad's boxcars and early passenger cars. Its heavy timber frame was engineered to absorb the pounding of the machinery inside, and it stayed in use until the late 1940s. Moved to this site in 1989 to spare it from demolition, it survives as a reminder of the repair work that kept a rail empire rolling.
Ralph Wilson, Sr.
Temple, TX
With only a high-school education, Ralph Wilson moved from Indiana to California in 1920 and worked his way into the decorative plaster and molding trade, buying his employer's company in 1928 and surviving the Depression. During World War II his shop made molds for bullet-proof fuel tanks and began experimenting with plastics, leading him into high-pressure decorative laminate. In the mid-1950s he founded Ralph Wilson Plastics—now Wilsonart International—in Temple, growing it into the world's largest maker of the material and endowing a lasting charitable trust.