Office	Hull House	Ice Plant	Cotton Seed Oil Mill

The Victor Cotton Oil Company Complex is a largely intact collection of resources illustrating the history of one of Gaffney’s largest industrial enterprises of the early twentieth century. The complex contains approximately fifteen resources constructed between ca. 1899 and ca. 1925. These include eight buildings, four objects, two structures, and one site. The Victor Cotton Oil Company, founded in 1899, constructed the city’s first cotton seed oil mill. A cotton seed oil mill first cleaned the seed of linters, which were sold for the manufacture of explosives. The seed was then hulled and ground and the hulls added to cattle feed. Then the grain of the seed was pressed to extract the oil, the most valuable product of the seed. The eventual uses of the oil included cooking oil, lubricating oil, and explosives. The residue (meal) left after the oil was extracted was of value as a feed or fertilizer. The company provided a market for seed produced by farmers of the area and furnished them with fertilizer and cattle feed. By 1910 the operations of the company had expanded to include a flour and corn mill, an ice plant, a fertilizer factory, and several cotton gins. Listed in the National Register March 27, 1986. The Victor Cotton Oil Company Complex has since been demolished. Removed from the National Register March 15, 2000.

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