How the FiberMax Center for Discovery Preserves Agricultural History and Inspires the Future Through Education

Story and Photos by Blair White

Heritage, memories, legacies, dreams— each serves as a cornerstone of the agriculture industry, and they are all held at the FiberMax Center for Discovery in Lubbock, Texas. The ag museum sits on a hill overlooking Makenzie Park, across from the American Windmill Museum. Housed within its walls is a rich history of the past and many bright dreams of the future. For Executive Director Lacee Hoelting, preserving history is significant, but educating young minds is vital.

Since its establishment in 2001, the visionaries behind the ag museum have always had a three-phase expansion goal. The final phase is nearing completion and will feature the Dan and Linda Taylor Cotton Heritage Center and the AgWorks Children’s Literacy Wing.

“I think we always knew we needed to get bigger,” Hoelting said. “We needed to keep adding, maybe change our focus from preservation to education, connecting the public back to the producers.”

According to the museum, children in the South Plains area are two to three generations removed from the farm. The gap narrows by focusing on agricultural literacy (possessing the knowledge and understanding of our food and fiber system). The goal is for children to be able to communicate essential information about agriculture.

Back in the Day

In 1969, man walked on the moon, the first electronic communication between two computers took place, and the Lubbock County Commissioners Court realized that the agricultural industry was swiftly changing.

The first installment of the Lubbock County Historical Collection was an assortment of notable farm equipment pieces stored in Shallowater, Texas. The collection, revered among industry leaders, deserved to be on display. The first location of the ag museum was in a borrowed building across the street from the American Windmill Museum. In 2011, the organization raised the funds needed to build the first phase of its current location, the Alton Brazell Museum. In 2014, a central exhibit hall, PCG Conference Center, catering kitchen and patio were added. Now, almost a decade later, the Children’s Literacy Wing is scheduled to be completed at the end of 2024. The initial efforts of the FiberMax Center for Discovery’s construction were focused on preserving the agricultural lifeblood of the South Plains. Today, the organization emphasizes educating young minds for the industry’s future.

“Everyone agrees that it’s a great idea and needs to be done,” Hoelting said. “Ultimately, it will benefit the agriculture industry by educating our youngest citizens on how important farmers, ranchers, and the industry are to everything around them.”

From the Ground Up

Plans for the Children’s Wing and Cotton Heritage Center began to take shape in 2015. Hoelting said she met with many industry professionals who agreed that children must learn about where their food and fiber originate, and it needed to be a fun learning experience. Originally, the budget for the project was around $3 million, but after the pandemic and inflation, it increased to $7 million.

“We had a lot of great ideas, but putting a cost to those was hard,” Hoelting said. “It was kind of like starting over. We had plans and had been detailing those out. We got input from different donors, teachers, and community members along the way, asking them how can we make this the most beneficial for them to utilize. We got some great suggestions and incorporated them.”

The new Children’s Literacy Wing is called AgWorks, a term the museum’s team defined in two ways.

“We talk about jobs in the industry and all of the different areas, then we talk about how AgWorks as a positive, how we all work together to produce a product for a growing population and continue to meet those challenges,” Hoelting explained. “I remember having a conversation at PCCA once, and they told me it’s more than just the farmers and the ginners and ranchers – we need the same positions that every other industry has, and that always stuck with me. If you want to be a scientist or a salesperson, you can do that in agriculture. We need those people, too. It’s aimed

Museums and cultural institutions are still critically important to educating today’s youth. The FiberMax Center for Discovery is willing to work with teachers to provide students with a well-rounded agricultural education.

“We do a lot of hands-on activities for kids and host field trips for different groups,” Hoelting said. “If there’s a certain subject students need to focus on or align to the TEKS that they have to meet, we are willing to work with them. I’ve always loved the education side. You get kids that come in, and even though they eat and wear clothes, they have not made that connection back to the hardworking farmers and ranchers who produce the food and fiber. When they have those light bulb moments, and it makes sense to them that there are so many people whose hands have touched the products they use every single day – that’s one of the most rewarding parts.”

Of the nearly 20,000 visitors who pass the threshold of the ag museum each year, about half aren’t local to the South Plains. Another portion has not been exposed to agriculture or the cotton industry.

“I would hope that every student within a 100-mile radius, fourth grade and under, sets foot in this facility and that they learn something about agriculture they didn’t know before,” Hoelting said, “whether it’s about cotton or a job they might be interested in, maybe it’s the difference between a cotton stripper and a cotton picker – just to know that we might have made a difference in what they understand about farming and how big a role it plays.”

Relocating a 150-Year-Old Cotton Gin

A project this big has many moving parts and different facets, all of which must be aligned to achieve one main goal: connecting the past with the future. Beyond the Ag Works Children’s Literacy Wing is the Dan and Linda Taylor Cotton Heritage Center, which contains the near 150-year-old Goodman Cotton Gin. The structure was recently relocated from the Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock but was initially built in 1875 near Tyler, Texas. Moving the gin to the ag museum serves the purpose of educating visitors on one of the most significant economic contributors to the South Plains and beyond.

“We’d been talking about moving the Goodman Gin here since I started working at the museum,” Hoelting said. “We had a couple of different campaigns, and all our local cotton gins, even some that aren’t local, and other cotton-affiliated businesses have made donations over the years for that. Then I had a board member come on, Chris Berry, who was from the same area where the gin was originally located, and he was fascinated with it. He reinvigorated the campaign.” Check out Chris Berry’s Story here.

Hoelting’s idea to make tangible progress on the gin relocation project started to come to life when she collaborated with Berry.

“One day, I was talking with Chris and asked him – what if we could put the gin inside our new building? It’s a wooden structure; it’s been outside for years, and we must preserve and protect it. He said, ‘Well, why not?”

After a conversation with the project architects, a plan was developed to fit a two-story, very old, animal-powered cotton gin into a one-story exhibit space. A large pit was dug to allow room for the bale press and to allow visitors to tour the second story of the gin. Such a lift required raising additional funds, but Hoelting said the team was very fortunate and grateful to find donors and restoration experts willing to help.

“When we were trying to figure out how to get the gin moved, we needed someone who understood historic wooden structures,” Hoelting said. “We had originally

talked to the main host of the show Barnwood Builders. He loved the idea, but the project didn’t fit the show’s format. So, we started looking at other cast members and came across Alex Webb, who was on the first seven seasons. He and his wife Jesse had started their own company out of Virginia. They were so excited that they came down immediately, and they were wonderful to work with. Then, we had a lot of volunteers from some of our local gins, and some of our board members went out and helped. The Ranching Heritage Center helped us as well.”

After the gin was relocated, the rest of the Cotton Heritage Center was built around the structure. The driver behind such a monumental venture is simple. As Hoelting puts it, when cotton does good, everyone does good.

“Cotton is such a fascinating story,” Hoelting expressed. “It’s so different than other crops, and it’s a story that we are primed to tell in this area because of all the affiliated businesses and all the hands that touch cotton in this part of the world. We always knew we wanted a piece just for cotton.”

Whether it’s preserving history or educating young minds, one thing is sure – agriculture’s story is being told thanks to the FiberMax Center for Discovery.