The Waco Daily Examiner

WACO COTTON FACTORY.
Making Preparations for Larger Manufactures.

By the kindness of Col. W. A. Taylor, we were given some points of interest, in reference to the operation of our cotton mill which may be of interest. The Waco cotton factory is a public institution, closely identified with the interest of the city, and the fact that the producing capacity is being doubled for the fall business is very gratifying. Additional machinery sufficient to double the present capacity of the works has been purchased and is now on the road, and with no bad luck, the mill will be running in a few weeks, with double the capacity of last year. The manufacture of cotton rope and cotton twine proved profitable in the past year, and orders have been received to cover all that the mill can produce with the increased capacity spoken of. During the past year the proprietors of the Waco cotton mill have paid out over $50,000 for cotton and labor, $15,000 of which was for labor. It has employed forty operatives about twenty-five of which, have been youths between fifteen and twenty. The distribution of fifteen thousand dollars a year, among merchants, physicians, landlords and others, its total of so much importance, as to the source from which the money comes, it being received from the north for manufactured goods, and reversing that order of things, namely selling of raw products and buying manufactured articles, an order of things which means poverty. Double the number of operatives and the sum distributed at home is doubled, multiply mills and other manufactories and our wealth is multiplied accordingly. The successful operation of the Waco cotton mill, should be a matter of local pride and of hope that it may be the germ from which other manufactories may spring. That the goods manufactured by our cotton mill have proved so excellent, that though coming in competition with the work of old established mills, they have found so ready and constant a market as to warrant an increased capacity, is a very flattering testimonial to the skill of the management, and goes very far to remove the objection frequently urged to manufactures in the south, namely the difficulty in procuring or training skilled labor, to work in cotton mills.