Paris Cotton Compress

In the early 1880s, cotton became a principal cash crop in Texas, with more than two million cultivated acres producing 800,000 bales each year. After the first railroad line reached Paris in 1876, local businessmen John Martin, W. B. Wise, and Frank Fitzhugh built a cotton compress beside the Texas and Pacific Railroad on what became a twelve-acre complex. Known variously as the Paris Cotton Compress, the Transcontinental Compress Company, and the Farmers and Merchants Compress Company, it opened in 188 and operated for almost 100 years. A warehouse was added in 1884, and by the 1890s the compress had two steam presses running 24 hours a day during the season for shipment to domestic and European markets. The compress compacted ginned cotton bales to a specific density, which state rules set in 1895 at 22.5 pounds per cubic foot for domestic use. Martin, Wise, and Fitzhugh became one of the largest cotton-buying firms in the South, with offices in New York, New Orleans, and Liverpool, England. Under various owners and managers over the decades, the business stimulated the local economy and helped make Paris a thriving regional commercial center. Production peaked at about 100,000 bales a year in the 1920s. The compress remained viable despite the decline in local cotton production after World War II, but the 1973 cotton boll weevil infestation devastated local crops. It closed in 1978, and the complex was dismantled in the 1980s.

Paris, Texas · United States