A.L. Holley, Oral History

A.L. Holley, Oral History

Streaming Media

Date

1993-09-22

Description

This is an audio recording of an oral history interview with A.L. Holley. It was conducted on September 22, 1993. The interviewer is Dr. James Conrad. This interview was conducted over the telephone. Mr. Holley describes the process of manufacturing cotton in considerable detail, including bailing, mixing, weighing, and transporting it. He explains how cotton trailers were weighed and how cotton was moved to the gins. Samples of each load of cotton were pulled out to show potential buyers the quality of the product before purchase. Holley explaines the process of washing the cotton before it was ginned and pressed. He said that cotton farmers would start and end their year at the bank. They borrowed money to grow cotton and paid off their debt at the end of the growing season. There was always risk that they would not make enough money to pay back the loans. Holley discusses the use of cotton strippers, noting that he did not use such equipment, as he harvests manually instead. He employed about eighty pickers to cover 225 acres. It took between four and six weeks to pick the crop. Holley loaded the cotton trailers himself with help from neighbors. Holley stated that in the early 1950s there was a great deal of cotton still being farmed in Hunt County. When cotton came to the gins, they would run twenty-four hours a day to keep up pace. He joined the Army in 1954. Holley recalled that by the time he came home, more people had started getting out of cotton. More acres were dedicated to raising cattle, and this decline continued throughout the following decades.

Type

Sound

Format

mp4

Department

Special Collections and University Archives

Identifier

2008-032_OH_00480_interview

Note

Audio enhanced with Adobe Creative Cloud AI tool

A.L. Holley, Oral History

Subject

Cotton gins and ginning; Hunt County (Tex.)


Keywords

cotton production

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Rights Statement

In Copyright