Daniel Pratt Gin Co - Don Kuykendall

Don Kuykendall_RIP · Oct 24, 2015

I have been working on a long term project to document a 1838 Factory that was built in my small town. In fact the town was built for the factory. It produced Cotton gin from 1838 up to around the year 2000. The building is going to be redone into something that will give it new life for decades to come. I am under contract not to disclose what just yet. It took me a year just to get to the right people and bug them enough until they finally gave in and let me do this project. In fact they finally gave me my own set of keys to the buildings and I have free reign to go in at any time and shoot. I am not going to clog up the post here with all the photos but I have produced an album that will contain all the images that I am shooting.

http://nikonites.com/gallery/browseimages.php?c=419#axzz3pSzZBE5O

I hope you will take a few minutes and look through the photos and let me know what you think. I have someone that knows the history and the factory that is going to walk me through and tell me all about the building and the use and history of the various areas. I am hopping to get enough material and good photos to produce a nice coffee table book in the future.

Here are a couple from today. I will add one or two each time I add a days worth of images to the album.

Needa · Oct 24, 2015

Thanks for the tour. Nice photos. Good luck with your book project.

cwgrizz · Oct 24, 2015

What a great way to record the history before the next step in progress begins. Nice job!

nikonpup · Oct 24, 2015

lot of history there. It was interesting to read the information on mr. Pratt, his life and mill that i found on google. Enjoy your project.

Don Kuykendall_RIP · Oct 24, 2015

nikonpup said:
lot of history there. It was interesting to read the information on mr. Pratt, his life and mill that i found on google. Enjoy your project.

I just bought a book about him. The Conquest of Labor: Daniel Pratt and Southern Industrialization
Google has some of it online Here If you are interested in history this is a very interesting read about early industry and the man behind it. It is fascinating for me since I just moved here about 15 years ago and the factory was still producing Cotton Gins when we moved here. This is what got me interested in the project to begin with. The factory is one block off the main street and is a prominent sight in downtown. It was locked up and no one was able to get in and everyone wanted to see what it was like now. I have a friend that is on the police force and they had keys for security purposes and he let me in July 2014. I spent the next year getting official permission to do this project.

Sandpatch · Oct 24, 2015

I used to live in Montgomery in the '80s, so sometimes visited Prattville. I never realized that Pratt's facility was so large. Great captures Don. These will be of great interest to many people.

Alabama Public Television had/has a series called 'First Tuesday' and when I lived there, they did an episode on the history of Prattville.

Don Kuykendall_RIP · Oct 24, 2015

Sandpatch said:
I used to live in Montgomery in the '80s, so sometimes visited Prattville. I never realized that Pratt's facility was so large. Great captures Don. These will be of great interest to many people.

Alabama Public Television had/has a series called 'First Tuesday' and when I lived there, they did an episode on the history of Prattville.

We moved to Montgomery from Tuscaloosa around 1987. Were you still in Montgomery then? We moved there when I bought the CameraAmerica Stores there. the one that was in Eastdale Mall was a PhotoWorld and I had been managing it for a number of years along with many other labs and the CameraAmerica store that was in Governors Square on the other side of town.

Sandpatch · Oct 24, 2015

Don Kuykendall said:
We moved to Montgomery from Tuscaloosa around 1987. Were you still in Montgomery then? We moved there when I bought the CameraAmerica Stores there. the one that was in Eastdale Mall was a PhotoWorld and I had been managing it for a number of years along with many other labs and the CameraAmerica store that was in Governors Square on the other side of town.

I moved to Montgomery in '84 and left in '91, so our time there definitely overlapped. Eastdale Mall was nice and rather new then as I recall. Was Governor's Square adjacent to Montgomery Mall? There was once a great model train shop nearby, which is now gone. I enjoyed my years in Montgomery and found my bride there as well. :heart:

Don Kuykendall_RIP · Oct 24, 2015

So did you ever use one of my photo labs while you were there?

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RobV · Oct 24, 2015

Was Mr. Pratt responsible for the dam? That is, was it built for the factory?

What is really impressive is the lack of graffiti. Almost pristine!

It looks like they just up and quit one day, not even shipping out the last of the cotton!

I am enjoying following along (where possible) on Google Maps!
https://goo.gl/maps/eHC6U9EaM7H2

Don Kuykendall_RIP · Oct 25, 2015

Yes the dam was built for the factory. I plan on shooting some of the belt system that was run by water originally. Parts of it are still in the building. There are two sub basements to the building that I know of. The first is just found the passage to this week. Not much to it. Just working space. But I do know there is a basement at creek level. I can see the doors and openings out into the creek. I have yet to find the passage Down to the level.

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