Farmers Cotton Oil Company had been in operation only six years when an artist sketched it for the border of T.M. Fowler’s 1908 bird’s-eye map of Wilson. At the time, the tobacco town was also one of the larger cotton markets in eastern North Carolina, and Farmers not only ginned cotton and pressed cotton seed oil, it manufactured fertilizer.
It was also a dangerous place to work. In November 1922, doctors amputated Will Scott’s left hand after it was mangled in machinery at the mill.
Wilson Daily Times, 16 November 1922.
Seven years later, Wade Vick was whirled to death after being caught in a revolving wheel at the compound.
As shown in the 1922 Sanborn fire insurance map, Farmers Cotton Oil Company filled almost the whole block bounded by East Barnes, Grace, Stemmery, and South Railroad Streets. The church at lower right was Wilson Chapel Free Will Baptist.
- Will Scott
Clipping courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III.
Still fascinated by that part of town. Some of the railroad tracks are still there.
I didn’t realize that parts of the plant were in operation into the 1980s. In my recollection, it was already abandoned by my childhood in the 1970s.
Lisa – Kaiser Agricultural Chemicals purchased Farmers in 1970. They continued to operate it for another 5 to 10 years before shutting the plant down. My grandfather retired when it was sold in 1970. That’s the same relative that you found the photo of that you researched and it turned out to be the cotton growers contest.
Thanks, John!
My grandmother Lottie McPhail Green Cohen lived on the corner of Stemmery and Grace Street in a 3 room house during the 40’s , 50’s, and 60’s. As a child in the 50s , I remember the awful smell coming from this plant EVERYDAY. With little effort, we could literally throw a rock across the street and hit the building.
I trust that this looooong standing eye sore has been demolished, along with all of the invading , slithering, critters that roamed the neighborhood for years due to the building being allowed to just fester for almost 40 years as a safety and health hazard after it ceased to operate . Talking about EVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION…….that is exactly how I remember this part of town where my grandmother had to raise my mother and her brothers after my grandpa died.