Cotton Gin was settled before 1848, when Dr. J.S. Wills established a mule-drawn gin there. A post office was founded in 1851, the year the county was organized. Dr. Wills gave a block of land for a courthouse, but voters declined to make Cotton Gin the county seat. The town had three churches, a good school, a newspaper, a Masonic Lodge, stores, and saloons. In the 1870's, when the Houston and Texas Central Railroad was built a few miles to the west, business interests left. Cotton Gin illustrates the fate of hundreds of early Texas towns bypassed by railroads, highways, and industry.