Mr. Ira oversaw ginning operations from a small white building east of the gin, a neatly finished office with beaded boards on the walls and ceiling, built-in counters and shelves for his record books, a small stove for winter comfort, and five large windows for year-round light. Because cotton dust adversely affected his health, he spent most of the ginning season there rather than in the gin house. In his record books he kept accounts for a variety of farm enterprises in addition to the cotton gin, and that diversity enabled the business to weather setbacks to cotton farming in the 1920s with the arrival of the boll weevil and in the 1930s with the Great Depression. On his office notepaper, he experimented with several styles of letterhead, including designs with a cotton bale, flowing ornamental script, and the grand title 'White City Farm,' small but telling indications of his ambitions for this upcountry farm.