Anthony “Tony” Mullins and his wife Carol were the featured speakers at this year’s Jonquil Jubilee held in Gibsland this past weekend, March 2.  

Mullins and his wife are from Sarepta and harvest a rare brown cotton that has become a demand worldwide, shipping out to Germany, Belgium, Europe, Canada and Bulgaria, to name a few.  

Many festival goers traveled to Gibsland Saturday and made the stop by the First Baptist Church to hear the story of how Mullins retired from coaching and teaching high school history to growing cotton in 2015.  

Mr. Mullins ordered a bunch of seeds and became fascinated with the antebellum and Civil War history printed in the seed packets that connected brown cotton to slave clothing and even Civil War battles. That spring he put several hundred seeds in the ground and has been expanding his knowledge and harvesting every year since.  

Mullins naturally began his presentation with a history lesson, explaining why brown cotton is important to Louisiana. 

He said, “Because when the Acadians arrived here in the 1750’s, they noticed that the Native Americans were growing brown cotton. They started using this cotton. It has a smooth coat or a naked seed, which means it has no fuzz on them. They would sit around and hand gin the cotton, it was a lot easier for them to do it this way.” 

According to Mullins they could get approximately 2 pounds of cotton by hand ginning per day.  

Mullins also made another interesting point regarding the cotton gin that was built in the 1790’s, which Eli Whitney is famously known for building. 

“That is wrong. How did I find that out? When I started growing this brown cotton,” explained Mullins. “Lo and behold, the man that really invented the cotton gin went by the name of Hodgen Holmes. He built the saw gin in South Carolina in 1788. He received a caveat, not a patent because there wasn’t a patent office until 1790.” 

A caveat was similar to a patent application. It included a description and drawing of an invention and basically served as an official notice of intention to file a patent application at a later date.  

“The day his caveat ran out, Eli Whitney got his patent for the cotton gin. Holmes came back in 1796 and got a patent. His patent was challenged by Eli Whitney, and they ended up going to court three different times,” said Mullins. “But of course, Eli Whitney had the right connections and his lawyers won, so that is why he is in the history books for inventing the cotton gin.” 

The Mullins handpick their cotton and then “gin it” through a small cotton gin. It is a small machine that sits on a tabletop. The cotton is fed into the machine where blades separate the seeds from the boll or the cotton itself. The cotton is then blown into a bag and the seed is spit from the bottom of the machine into a bucket.  

The couple sells fiber, sliver, yarn, textiles, blankets, underwear, scarves, ornaments, table setting sets and much more.  

“Everything we have had made in the last five years; we have sold,” said Mullins. “All from Facebook.” 

For those interested, you can check out their Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/SareptaBrownCotton 

Other stops at the Jonquil Jubilee included the featured “Red Barn” where visitors could see the restoration progress and learn about the history of the landmark. Other stops included gardens, quilt shows, tablescapes and multiple museums were open throughout the day with vendors and food trucks set up downtown. 

“The Jonquil Festival was a record breaking year,” said Festival committee member Barbara Johnson. “Attendance was awesome. The beautiful weather encouraged everyone to get out for a day of fun and flowers. There was lots of visiting and laughter and the vendors stayed busy. Plans are already being made for the 2025 Jonquil Festival.”