You are here: Home >> Georgetown-Hutto-Taylor >> History >> Hutto Co-op

Hutto Co-op

Attention: open in a new window.

Written by Mike Fowler Friday, 10 October 2008

More than 70 years ago, in 1937, a group of Hutto community farmers banded together with plans to create a new cotton gin.

There were already many operating gins in the area at that time. The country was still in a depression; however, the farmers believed they could get better grades on their cotton and provide better member services.

The Hutto Co-op Gin on its last day in operation, Oct. 17, 2001. Photo courtesy Bill Stern

On April 21, 1938, the Hutto Co-op Gin Company was incorporated with an elected board, including E.S. Johnson, H.E. Gainer, S.H. Anderson, W.E. Rogan, Arthur Olander, P.H. Overton and Herman Decker. The new company had sold shares and bought out the existing Nelson-Swenson Gin to get its business established. H.E. Gainer was the first general manager.

In July 1949 lightening struck, starting a fire that destroyed the cotton gin. With great urgency, the gin was rebuilt.

In 1951, Jack Blackman was the driving force behind the creation of the Hutto Grain Co-op. A separate board was established to govern it. The Hutto Grain Co-op bought new oil storage tanks and used them as grain storage facilities; later, 10 larger corrugated metal silos were constructed.

From the mid-1960s until 1978, Victor Stern served as the board president for the gin and was employed as the general manager of the gin from 1978 until 1989. His only son, Bill, was the last general manager from 2001 until 2004 and also served as president of the Hutto Grain Co-op.

“The co-op is a tribute to the agricultural heritage of Hutto,” Bill Stern said. “It had a very good run for a business. Considering the nature of farming, weather, low prices for cotton and grain, massive development of farm land and costly environmental issues, it is amazing that it lasted as long as it did.”

Lee Martinez of Hutto also worked for the Hutto Gin Co-op most of his adult life. Born in 1929, Martinez began hoeing and picking cotton at age 9. In 1951, Martinez began working part time at the gin co-op and full time from 1962 until it closed in 2003.

The Hanstrom and Tinning Gin in the 1910s, south of the railroad tracks, was one of the early cotton gins in Hutto. Site of the Hutto Co-op Mercantile farmers market. Photos courtesy Mike Fowler

During ginning season, which was usually heaviest in August and September but often carried through October and November, the cotton gins were in operation 24 hours a day.

In 1979, 8,200 bales of cotton were ginned from trailers delivered to the gin site, and in 1992, more than 10,000 bales of cotton were ginned from modules delivered to the gin site.

In a one-year period in the mid-to-late-1980s, more than 500 railroad grain transport cars were filled and processed out of the Hutto Grain Co-op.

Bill Stern said the gin worked its last bale of cotton and was shut down at approximately 11 a.m. Oct. 17, 2001. The railroad spur on the property was used until 2003.

The city of Hutto paid more than $2 million to purchase the Hutto Co-Op Gin and Hutto Grain Co-op in December 2003 and February 2004.

In late 2004, the Hutto Historical Preservation Commission recommended to the city council and staff that 14 significant structures be retained in the design and reuse of the co-op property. The structures recommended to remain included the long storage building by the highway; all nine of the 36-foot diameter domed silos; a tenth 72-foot diameter silo; both of the large cotton gin buildings and the cottonseed storage structure.

The city of Hutto entered into a six-month lease of the property with Marketplace Austin for the purpose of a farmers market to be held every Saturday until December.

The city is also working on a permanent plan for the co-op site.