Calvert, Texas
Texas
A town of under a thousand people once claimed the largest cotton gin in the world.
By 1871, Calvert was claiming the largest cotton gin on earth. It had twenty-one stands and an oil mill attached to it, and it pulled in cotton from a wide stretch of the Brazos River bottoms. In one year alone, thirty-two thousand bales came in. Sources argue about when it was actually built. One account puts it at 1871, another says a man named John Gibson raised it in 1876. The whole town existed because of a railroad deal. Robert Calvert, a farmer and former state representative, pushed the Houston and Texas Central to run through the area. The railroad agreed to stop there in 1868. Merchants in nearby towns pulled up stakes and moved in within weeks. The first trains arrived in 1869. By 1878 the place had fifty-two businesses. Today the population is about nine hundred and seventy, and the town sells antiques.
This is the first of 3 parts. The rest runs about 3 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.
By 1871, the town claimed to have the largest cotton gin in the world.
Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Nearby, on the same roads
- Navasota, Texas 54 mi The lawman who later hunted down Bonnie and Clyde got his start cleaning up a Texas town where a hundred men died in street shootouts in two years.