Autauga County Heritage Association

05/07/2026

Reposting a response to a history-related question ACHA is often asked-

WHY WAS DANIEL PRATT’S HOME DEMOLISHED?

While we at ACHA feel the removal of Daniel Pratt’s home is a great loss for our town, in reality, the removal of this historic home saved our city! Continental Gin Company was incorporated in 1899 when six gin companies merged, including the Daniel Pratt Gin Company. Originally the company had plants in six locations, Prattville, Birmingham(2 plants), Dallas, Atlanta & Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Over the years, the company consolidated, closing plants, and by 1959 leaving one in B’ham and the one in P’ville. Headquarters was in B’ham and they planned to close the Prattville location. But instead, to save the 400-500 jobs, City officials and local plant managers convinced headquarters to closed the B’ham plant and move headquarters to P’ville. At the time, CGC was the only industry in P’ville. The loss of this plant would have been devastating to our town & its people.
By this time cotton gins were building-size and all of the historic brick buildings were too narrow, too small to manufacture the huge gins. In order to create a large enough space, Pratt’s home was demolished to build a new manufacturing space. This was the metal building, 8 acres in size, under metal roofing that was demolished when the redevelopment of the original gin shop buildings happened, creating The Mill. The historic structures remained and the removal of the 1961 building created a more attractive site.
Yes, the sacrifice of Pratt’s home is tragic, but saving the Gin Shop and the livelihoods of Prattville’s families was critical to saving our town. CGC moved headquarters to P’ville in 1961 securing the growth & progress of our city.
So now you know the rest of the story!

05/04/2026

Let's make our community a better place!

04/30/2026

Autauga County Heritage Association volunteers have worked over 12 years cleaning, preserving & cataloguing the massive Daniel Pratt/Continental Gin Company Archival Collection. We originally thought we were saving local history. To our surprise, we actually had almost the entire history of the cotton ginning industry! We created a timeline to depict the incorporation of each company and when it was merged with, purchased by, or absorbed by Continental Gin Company. We found that we had records of over 25 cotton related businesses! A sample of the collection holdings include over 40,000 engineering drawings; 375 ledgers dating back to 1835; over 300 patents developed by CGC employees; thousands of pieces of original advertising dating from 1856-2012; original art, territorial agent contracts, thousands of photos, etc.The employee database has over 7,000 records of CGC employees from 1900- c1960.
As you can see it’s a fabulous collection & we look forward to sharing it.
We encourage you to support our endeavors to build a larger museum, The PRATT. For more information contact the Prattaugan Museum 334-361-0961 or our website
autaugahistory.org
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Let's make our community a better place!

04/30/2026

The Autauga County Heritage Association in Prattville, AL is planning and working on a new museum to share the history of Daniel Pratt and the gin company he started that was in operation for nearly 180 years! We plan to renovate the Research & Development Building on the complex to showcase the evolution of cotton ginning and the company’s industrial history. In addition, we are building a new brick building, also on the historic complex, to share the history of Daniel Pratt and his endeavors to expand industrialization in Alabama, his creation of the first industrial village in Alabama, and his remarkable life. The new building will also have storage for the massive archival collection and a work room where visitors can come and have access to the collection. A group of volunteers have spent over 12 years preserving & cataloguing the paper documents. We are excited to have this opportunity to make this significant historical collection available for public access!

04/29/2026

TO ALL YOU RETIRED GIN SHOP EMPLOYEES, WE NEED YOUR HELP!
When the Gin Shop closed the ACHA saved all the historic content from the buildings. The old patterns used in the foundry to produce the metal parts for gins are part of the artifacts we saved. We need assistance in identifying which patterns went with which machine. We have the old Pattern Index but we need someone with some knowledge to interpret it.- Please contact ACHA at 334-361-0961, or Ann at 334-312-6122 Thank you!

04/28/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17ifcR5Hug/?mibextid=wwXIfr

04/25/2026

04/24/2026

Rain or shine the volunteers with the Autauga County Heritage Association will welcome you with smiles on our faces when to join us for the annual Low Country Boil. Your attendance not only gives you a great night out, it lends tremendous support to all the projects undertaken by the organization. Did you know ACHA has restored the gorgeous c1840 plantation house, Buena Vista, making it available for special events? The ACHA has also managed the Prattaugan Museum for approximately 30 years saving, documenting and sharing our rich history. And most exciting are the plans to build a larger museum and archival library as well as renovating the Research & Development building to make our history accessible to the public. When Continental Eagle Corporation closed in 2012, ACHA was on hand requesting that all the historic content remain in Prattville. A group of volunteers have spent over twelve years cataloging & preserving the archival documents and storing artifacts and now we are looking forward to sharing this amazing history with locals, visitors and students! We encourage you to support these efforts & get involved!