Cotton Picking Time: Gin House Scales

Gin House Scale

Figure 134. Gin house scale

This scale was used to weigh the cotton after it was ginned and pressed into bales. Here, Archie Waiters, with the help of Catherine Waiters, demonstrates how the various parts of the scale fit together. As a young man, Waiters had worked at the gin house. He had a good story about the first day he went to work feeding the suck pipe, the suction pipe that pulled the cotton out of the wagons and up into the gin house. He had just started to work when the suck pipe pulled his hat off and ginned it with the cotton. (Photo 1976)

Archie & Catherine Waiters showing how gin house
scale parts fit together