Janson Cox has a passion for cotton
WE WEAR COTTON, SLEEP ON IT, TOWEL OFF WITH IT. Cotton rescued the U.S. economy after the American Revolution; it did the same for the South after the Civil War.
More than just fluffy white balls, cotton actually comes in seven different colors and can be found in products as diverse as ice cream, eyeglasses, lipstick, X-ray film and dynamite.
If he were so inclined, Janson Cox—a professional historian, gifted storyteller and executive director of the South Carolina Cotton Museum— could meet you at the front door of his Bishopville museum and bend your ear for hours about what you don’t know about cotton.
Instead, Cox gives his visitors ample room to meander. Answers and anecdotes are always nearby if desired, but this is an adventure of discovery for those who like to explore at their own pace. Tour guides are absent—the exhibits themselves tell the intriguing story of cotton in this state.
Visitors may prowl the 16,000 square- foot museum at their leisure— sink hands into bins of cotton lint, peer into historic and modern cotton processing machinery, watch a miniature mule-powered cotton gin at work and imagine themselves in times and places past.
“When people go into a museum, they don’t want ‘virtual reality’—you can do that at home on your computer,” Cox says. “People want to see real objects, touch real things.”
The eye-catching entry exhibit is a four-foot-tall cotton bale, wrapped in burlap and still tagged with its metal IRS marker from 1935. Here is a first chance to lay hands on cotton and learn why it has flourished in South Carolina and been a cornerstone of the state’s economy and history since the 1700s.
Travel a chronological path to see scales that weighed picked cotton before it was sold and to compare evolving models of cotton gins. Under signs that read “Please touch!” visitors can dig fingers into raw cotton fibers and feel seeds still buried tightly inside, imagining the chore of separating seeds by hand before gins were invented.
Just two miles from I-20, the Cotton Museum is a highlight of downtown Bishopville and the must-see first stop on the S.C. Cotton Trail through the Pee Dee. More than 9,000 visitors— from nearly every state and some other countries—enjoyed the museum in 2011.
What they enjoy is time to explore artifacts that are rapidly disappearing— spinning wheels, looms, a crop dusting plane with spinning propeller, a tenant farmer’s shack and more.
One favorite is a three-foot-high model of the destructive boll weevil. If you want to see the six-millimeter real thing, Cox owns the last boll weevil captured in South Carolina. Ask, and he’ll show it to you, preserved in a small tube.
Why should modern-day South Carolinians care about something as plain-Jane as cotton? Cox, the museum’s chief advocate for 13 years, explains.
“Cotton is as important today to your daily life as it has ever been,” he says. “To understand the current life of cotton, you have to know the history, geography, politics and science of cotton.”
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Get There
The South Carolina Cotton Museum is located at 121 West Cedar Lane, Bishopville. Take exit 116 off Interstate 20 in Lee County. Follow Highway 15 North two miles into downtown Bishopville, and turn left at the third traffic light onto West Cedar Lane. The museum is on the left.
HOURS: Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
ADMISSION: Adults, $6; Senior Citizens, $4; Students, $3. Contact the museum for educational group programs and admission fees.
DETAILS: (803) 484-4497;sccotton.org
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The S.C. Cotton Museum is only one of Bishopville’s highlights. Check out "Must-see Bishopville."