Gin Office

Gin Office. Shields-Ethridge Heritage Farm. Mr. Ira would oversee ginning operations from this small white building to the east of the gin. The interior of this building is neatly finished with beaded boards on the walls and ceiling, and built-in counters and shelves for his record books. It was made comfortable in winter, by a small stove and well-lit year-round by five large windows. Mr. Ira's health was adversely affected by cotton dust so in the ginning season he spent most of his time here and not in the gin house. , In his record books Mr. Ira kept accounts for a variety of farm enterprises in addition to the cotton gin. It was this diversity that enabled his business to weather the setbacks to cotton farming that came in the 1920s with the arrival of the boll weevil and in the 1930s with the Great Depression. On his office notepaper Mr. Ira experimented with several styles of letterhead, some picturing a cotton bale, some featuring a flowing ornamental script, and some giving his enterprise the rather grand title of ‘White City Farm' , small but telling indications of his ambitions for this 'upcountry' farm.