Agenda 10-17-23; 5-a - Joint Public Hearing with the Historic Preservation Commission Regarding the Proposed Designation of the Davis Cotton Gin and Press as an Orange County Historic Landmark

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6 ORANGE COUNTY LOCAL LANDMARK APPLICATION DAVIS FARM COTTON GIN AND PRESS 5. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE The Davis Farm in Chapel Hill Township was in the ownership of the Davis family for 138 years or longer—from at least 1882 to 2020. This farmstead was documented during the initial rural survey of Orange County, carried out in 1992-93 and assigned a site number at that time: OR 0494. Along with the house, believed by the family to have been built in the 1860s, the farm possesses a well-preserved collection of outbuildings typical of those once found throughout Orange County on middling, largely self-sufficient farms dating from the second half of the nineteenth century through the first several decades of the twentieth century. The Davis Farm also had a small-scale agricultural-industrial complex that consisted of a blacksmith shop, a cotton gin and press, and a small corn mill that served not only the Davises but also area farmers. Such complexes, though not necessarily with the same industries, could be found scattered around the county, but surviving examples of these buildings are extremely rare. At the Davis Farm, the blacksmith shop and the corn mill are gone, but the cotton gin and press and the building in which they stand remain. Because of the composition of the soil, the southern part of Orange County, including Chapel Hill Township, was conducive to growing cotton. For a time, this was an important cash crop, and cotton gins to process the cotton appeared on the landscape. Two were noted in 1880, eight in 1907, fourteen in 1915, and fifteen in 1916, with nine of these being located in Chapel Hill Township. Whether these were small facilities like the cotton gin and press at the Davis Farm or much larger is not known, for no other surviving examples have been identified in the county. The gin machinery in the barn at Davis Farm was manufactured by the Daniel Pratt Gin Company of Prattville, Alabama, with patent dates of 1873 and 1877. The frame cotton press with its iron screw mechanism may have been built from a pattern or directions in an agricultural guide. The boll weevil infestation in the Piedmont beginning in the 1920s eventually ruined most of the county's cotton crops and greatly diminished the need for ginning facilities. The Davis Farm Cotton Gin and Press is architecturally significant in Orange County because the log and frame building along with its gin and press machinery displays the distinct characteristics of a small-scale cotton gin facility from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The Davis Farm Cotton Gin and Press operated from ca. 1880 to ca. 1940. It is highly significant in Orange County as the only known surviving example of this small-scale agricultural industry that assisted farmers during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. 6. ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION E Settin Refer to rints of hotos and the attached Site Plan and Keyfor locations of buildings) The Davis Farm Cotton Gin and Press building at 421 C D Farms Road in Chapel Hill Township is part of the 19.5-acre tract that survives intact from the once much-larger Davis Farm located about 5.3 miles south of Hillsborough off the west side of Old NC 86 South. The setting of the rural, being in the midst of farm lands, woodlands, and some suburban overall property is very housing. The property proposed for designation as an Orange County Local Historic Landmark 3