Old Cotton Oil Mill
Winters, Runnels County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First local industrial plant. Processed cottonseed into cake, meal, hulls, oil. Gave city a good payroll, a work whistle marking times of day, and a good aroma. Built 1909-10 by Bird, Hall and Mertz, of San Angelo. Stone for millhouse was quarried at Posey farm, on Gap Creek (southeast of city). Owned by Herman Giesecke and Associates, of Ballinger (1911-27); then by Anderson, Clayton & Co., of Houston. Mill closed in 1939 after cotton farming declined. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1962
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Winters got its first industrial plant when Bird, Hall and Mertz of San Angelo built this cottonseed oil mill in 1909-10, its millhouse walls quarried from stone at the Posey farm on Gap Creek. The mill crushed cottonseed into cake, meal, hulls, and oil, and gave the town a payroll, a work whistle that marked the day, and a distinctive aroma. It passed through the hands of Ballinger and Houston owners before closing in 1939 as cotton farming declined.
Why it matters
The cotton oil mill embodies how cotton reshaped the Southern economy, turning what was once waste seed into an industry that anchored small-town wages.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early 1900s, cotton ruled much of Texas. Farmers across the state, including the Rolling Plains and Central West Texas, planted it widely, and towns like Winters grew up as places to gin, sell, and ship the crop. Railroads tied these towns to distant markets and made it possible to build local industries around cotton.
For a long time, cottonseed had been treated mostly as a leftover after ginning. By the late nineteenth century, that had changed. Mills across the South crushed the seed into oil, meal, cake, and hulls. The oil went into food products and other goods, while meal, cake, and hulls became livestock feed and fertilizer. What had been a waste product was now a valuable business.
That boom didn't last forever. In the 1920s and 1930s, cotton farming in many parts of Texas struggled with falling prices, pests, soil exhaustion, drought, and the Great Depression. As farmers planted less cotton, mills that depended on local seed had trouble staying open.
People & events
The mill was built in 1909-10 by Bird, Hall and Mertz, a firm from San Angelo. Builders used local stone for the millhouse, quarried at the Posey farm on Gap Creek, southeast of town. So the building was made from the same land whose crops it would process.
It was Winters' first industrial plant, and it changed daily life in town. The mill crushed cottonseed into cake, meal, hulls, and oil. It created a steady payroll, which mattered a great deal in a farming town where money usually came in seasonally. Its whistle marked the hours of the workday for the whole town. And according to the marker, the mill also gave Winters a distinctive, pleasant smell, which older residents likely remembered long after it closed.
From 1911 to 1927, the mill belonged to Herman Giesecke and associates of Ballinger. After that, it passed to Anderson, Clayton & Co. of Houston, one of the biggest names in the cotton trade. Even so, the mill couldn't outlast the decline of local cotton farming. It closed in 1939.
Its place in the American story
The Winters cotton oil mill is a small piece of a huge national story: how cotton shaped the American economy. Cotton oil mills turned a byproduct into several products, and they helped bring industry to farm towns across the South and Southwest. They showed that agricultural communities could process crops locally instead of shipping everything away raw.
The mill's change of ownership also reflects a broader trend. Local owners from nearby Ballinger gave way to a large Houston firm with operations far beyond Runnels County. Across the country in the early twentieth century, small local businesses increasingly became parts of bigger regional and national companies.
The mill's closing in 1939 is part of the story too. When cotton declined in many parts of Texas during the Depression era, the businesses built around it declined as well. The rise and fall of the Winters mill mirrors what happened in countless farm towns, where a local economy depended on a single crop.
If you visit
Look for the stone. The millhouse walls were made from rock quarried at a farm on nearby Gap Creek, so the building material itself is part of the local story. Picture the site running at full capacity: wagons of cottonseed arriving, machinery humming, and the whistle sounding across Winters to mark the working day.
The marker notes a detail you won't find in many historic sites: the smell. Standing here, try to imagine a town where the scent of pressed cottonseed drifted over the streets. It's a reminder that history isn't just about buildings and dates. It's also about the sounds and smells people lived with every day.
Winters makes a good stop on a drive through the farm and ranch country of Central West Texas. Pair this marker with a walk around the town's older commercial district, and keep an eye out for the fields around town, which still show how agriculture shaped this landscape.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Herman Giesecke
Themes & tags
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