Agricultural college’s cotton gin running again

Youth need to learn role of industry in life, official says.

TIFTON — It’s taken a while, but the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village has again fired up its cotton gin.

Museum officials say donors from across the U.S. helped get the gin running again earlier this month.

“The successful completion of this project allowed us to bring an integral part of the Historic Village back into operational status and further our educational and historic preservation missions,” Museum Director Garrett Boone said. “The gin provides an opportunity for kindergarten through 12th grade students, our ABAC students, and the public to learn more about a vital part of the agricultural and textile heritage of this region of the South.”

Director of Advancement Deidre Martin added, “It’s more important than ever before that we educate folks, especially our young people, about the important role of the cotton industry in our daily lives,” Martin said.

Boone said the gin building, constructed at the museum site 40 years ago, was designed from blueprints of several late 1800s cotton gins. Lummus Industries from Columbus originally restored the gin stand. Equipment was painted in original colors, including gin stand and boiler. A gin the size of the one at the museum could produce six to eight bales of ginned cotton a day.

The renovation project, helped along by gifts of $10,000 or more from Bayer and the Montgomery Family Foundation Inc., involved the replacement of wood siding and beams throughout the structure and replacement of belts and piping for the ginning process. The cotton gin boiler was also replaced with a historically accurate representation with an engine size of 90 hp.