LOUIS JOSEPH IVEY was a farmer all his life and grew cotton from 1906 until the time of his death in 1967. He introduced cotton in California in 1907, planted the first crop at Calexico in the Imperial Valley and served on the initial Board of Directors for the Imperial Irrigation District established in 1911.
The Ivey Brothers, Louis, Bob and Ben, at Calexico, California, picked and ginned the earliest bale of cotton ever picked and ginned in the area. The land that harvested the first bale on June 17, 1914 was plowed, re-listed and the seed from that first bale was planted on June 19, 1914. On October 15, 1914 a bale was picked and ginned, creating "Father and Son" bales of cotton of the same season, same year and from the same land. The two bales were on exhibition at the State Fair at San Diego, California in 1914, and at the World Fair at San Francisco, California, in 1915.
Mr. Louis Ivey was Secretary – Treasurer and Manager of the Imperial Valley Cotton Oil Co., which built the first cotton gins and cotton seed oil mill in California and later in Texas. He introduced cotton as the first grower and first ginner in the El Paso Valley, Texas and Mesilla Valley, New Mexico. He grew up hoeing, cultivating and picking cotton on his father’s farm/ranch in Texas. In addition to being a farmer he spent many years buying and selling cotton, doing an Export – Import and Domestic business.
Mr. Ivey’s business as a cotton buyer brought him to El Paso for the first time. In 1911, Francisco (Pancho) Villa confiscated a large quantity of cotton in Torreon, Mexico and shipped it to market at Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso. Mr. Ivey came from the Imperial Valley of California to buy all or a portion of that cotton. He liked what he saw in the land around El Paso. The cotton production possibilities enhanced by irrigation possibilities, in the El Paso Valley (then known as the Valle de Guadalupe) were as good if not better then the Imperial Valley. The following year, 1912 he returned to plant cotton in two small areas of the valley. One area was at Ysleta, an Orchard farm owned by Mr. White and the other area was east of Tornillo. About three (3) acres was planted at the Ysleta location and eight (8) acres was planted at the Tornillo location. A total of 12 bales of cotton were produced at the 8 acres east of Tornillo in an area later known as Acala and considered to be a superb rate of production of land reclaimed from scrub-brush desert.
In 1916, after the Elephant Butte irrigation project began operations, Mr. Ivey returned to develop the 1800 acre Ivey-Dale Farm at Tornillo and by 1920 he developed the 1200 acre Ivey - Dale - Owen Farm located south of Fabens, also known as "The Island Farm” which was rich from years of Rio Grande alluvial deposits.
During the early days of cotton production in the District, Mr. Ivey and his associates built the first 21 gins with compresses at Fabens, El Paso, Pecos, TX, Las Cruces, N.M and Tucson, AZ. They also bought a compress in Big Spring, Texas. He was the first cotton merchant in the area involved with export, import and domestic mill business. He taught cotton classification and marketing for five years, giving free instructions to high school agricultural students, cotton buyers, farmers and others interested.
Mr. Ivey was President of the First National Bank of Fabens in the early 1920s. About that same time, the Tornillo District did not have a school because funds to operate a school were unavailable. As Manager of the Ivey – Dale Farm, he built and equipped a building on the farm, employed and paid teachers until public schools were built. As an active charter member of the Fabens Lions Club, with the help of other clubs, he headed a movement in buying fifteen acres of land in Fabens on which a recreation center was built, including a swimming pool, club house for the Boy Scouts, a Woman’s Club, bath house, mess hall and a nine hole golf course.
He also served on the City-County Hospital Board.
Mr. Ivey served two terms as County Commissioner of El Paso County, Precinct 3. He and the other members of the court, through economic administration, guided El Paso County financially out of the red for the first time in more than twenty years. There were no public health centers or County Clinics in Precinct 3 when he took office. Under Mr. Ivey's direction, sites were purchased and County Clinics constructed at San Elizario, Clint and Fabens. Mr. Ivey made numerous trips to Washington, D.C. to secure Federal funding for construction of an El Paso County warehouse. To open a rock quarry near Fabens, right-of-way was purchased and twenty-five (25) miles of road was paved in Precinct 3. This made rock available, at short hauls, to construct roads and other building purposes in Precinct 3 at economical cost. It was at this Fabens rock quarry that workers dug up the upper jaw of a prehistoric animal with a row of teeth intact and other bones from three to five feet long. When asked, Mr. Ivey would say that Dinny, Foozy and Ally Oop must have used the area as a play ground many millions of years ago. The bones were given to the College of Mines in El Paso, TX
Representing the County, Mr. Ivey journeyed to Washington, D.C. with Mr. E. H. Simons, who represented the Chamber of Commerce and the City of El Paso, where they secured, through the State Department, a donation of the land for Ascarate Park. They also, secured approval for a C.C.C. Camp project to construct Ascarate Lake, support buildings, a nursery, park roads and park beautification.
Mr. Ivey became Manager of the Farmers and Merchants Association, Inc., in 1939. The first problem undertaken was to increase the truck load limit in this state. He asked for 55,000 pounds to conform to adjoining states. The limit was increased from 7000 pounds to 38,000 pounds.
Throughout the early pioneer days in El Paso County and West Texas, irrigated cotton raisers were hampered by unfair and discriminatory legislative practices favoring dry land cotton over irrigated cotton. It was the repeated and persistent appearances by Mr. Ivey before Congressional committees which put the irrigation farmer on the same footing with producers of rain-grown cotton.
He protested the charges assessed farmers producing cotton West of the Pecos River in Texas, whereby under Federal and State Laws and regulations the area was quarantined and a charge was set at two dollars per bale for fumigation when the actual cost of fumigating was less than sixty cents per bale and was done for the protection of the entire cotton industry of this Nation. He took the position that the quarantine was justified to prevent the spread of pink bollworm but the charge was unreasonable, and should be borne by the entire industry and not be a tax against a few for the protection and benefit of the many. In 1929 he was successful in getting an amendment to the Quarantine Act passed. It was substantially as follows: “The State shall reimburse the producer for all just costs because of this Act”. By continuing the fight he got an appropriation Bill introduced and passed, paying back $500,000 to the Texas farmers west of the Pecos River. Not a bale has been fumigated since. The regulation was changed whereby the new regulation requires that the cotton seed shall be sterilized before it is removed from the gin plant. The law specifically provides that the State shall sterilize the seed. The State Legislature has neglected to provide the funds covering the cost of sterilization which has cost Hudspeth and El Paso County farmers from $50,000 to $75,000 annually since 1932.
Mr. Ivey, believing that the farming and livestock industries in this district, were so far removed from the A & M College of Texas that they were not receiving the attention and service justly due them, and he initiated efforts to locate an Agricultural Experiment Sub-Station in this District. Mr. Ivey, at his own expense, traveled to College Station to meet with A & M College officials, seeking their advice and co-operation before proceeding to Austin where he was successful in introducing and passing a Bill authorizing the Sub-Station. After several years and a change of Governors, Mr. Ivey succeeded in receiving State appropriations totaling $50,000 for operation and maintenance of the new Agriculture Experimental Farm to be located near Ysleta, Texas on a portion of the Old County Poor Farm donated by El Paso County to the State by actions by the County Commissioners Court, of which he was a member. This is now one of the outstanding Texas A & M Sub-Station in the State.
In addition to the above activities Mr. Ivey organized the Southwest Four-State Cotton Growers Association in the 1940's and initiated efforts to remove the discriminatory market and loan value placed on irrigated cotton by the U. S. Secretary of Agriculture. USDA established the Government loan value on rain grown cotton to be $9.00 to $40.00 higher per bale, dependent upon grade and staple length, than value placed on irrigated cotton. By presenting mill and laboratory comparative tests at Congressional hearings Mr. Ivey proved and convinced Congress that irrigated cotton is superior to rain grown cotton and was successful in removing the discrimination. This action ended the annual loss of $ 8 to 12 million to the irrigated area farmers of which this District was losing from two to three million dollars annually. These savings quickly boosted the local economy, increased employment and creating prosperity because our product was now selling on its true value and bringing a premium over any other cotton because of its excellent quality.
In 1946 Mr. Ivey played the leading role in securing an appropriation of $240,000, included in the U.S. State Department Budget, for the purpose of improving the Hudspeth County Conservation and Reclamation District which aided in solving local water problems.
He was a member of the four man committee representing El Paso, City and County, at a hearing in Austin for the purpose of hearing pleas from over the State for equitable portions from the Centennial Appropriation. This Committee secured an increase from $10,000 to $75,000 which was spent in constructing the El Paso Centennial Museum Building at the Texas College of Mines.
It was because of Mr. Ivey's public interest, energy and effort that a Ginning and Fiber Testing Laboratory was constructed in the El Paso area and a Dry Mix Fertilizer Manufacturing Plant constructed in Clint, Texas.
In the early 1940's, Mr. Ivey appeared before the United States Tariff Commission testifying against allowing an increase in import quotas of long staple cotton which unfairly competes with American-Egyptian cotton produced in this district. His contention being that the cost of cotton production in foreign countries is less than 25% of the production costs in this country, and if restrictions on imports were removed, American farmers would likely go out of business and thereby our National security would be weakened by loss of strategical fibers in time of war.
Mr. Ivey served as the Manager of the El Paso County Cotton Association, Inc. ; Manager of the Farmers and Merchants Association, Inc.; Secretary of the El Paso Chapter of the Private Truck Owners Association of Texas; and by Presidential appointment, a member of the Fiber Committee serving the U. S. Army and Navy Munitions Board; served by appointment by the U. S. Secretary of Agriculture on a World Committee which has as its duty, establishing cotton standards for the Secretary’s approval to be used as a world standard against which domestic and world cotton transactions are consummated; served by appointment as an Advisor to the State Commissioner of Labor; and appointed by the President of the University of Texas as a member of the State Advisory Committee in connection with a two-year socio-economic survey of the Spanish speaking people of Texas. These appointments were made to Mr. Ivey in recognition of his qualifications to render service to the El Paso area and the citizens of the US.
Mr. Ivey was a major influence in the success of long staple cotton production in West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and southern California. He was a breeder, farmer, promoter, lobbyist and press agent for long staple American-Egyptian varieties in the vast irrigated sections of the Southwest and probably the most knowledgeable expert about those strains in America. Mr. Ivey was instrumental in the formation of the Four-State Cotton Growers Association and served for a number of years, at a personal financial sacrifice, as executive secretary of the El Paso Valley Cotton Association.
During 1949 and 1950 he served El Paso, Hudspeth and Culberson Counties as their State Representative (District 90) and his legislative accomplishments for the cotton industry are dynamic and numerous.
On many occasions he appeared in Washington to testify before Congressional committees on farm legislation. When the President’s Commission on Migratory Labor met in El Paso in August 1950, Louis Ivey was the one man the Commission members wanted to hear. He read a lengthy statement which was one of the most impressive presentations the migrant labor problem heard by a group. His background, coupled with his sincerity, carried deep conviction as he urged passage of a Bracero (Mexican farm labor) Program which became advantageous to both the cotton farmer and the workers, to whom he referred repeatedly as “our good neighbors to the south.”
Mr. Ivey pioneered the raising of American-Egyptian cotton in the Southwest. In 1950, during the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, Mohamed Kamil Abdul Rahim, intensive whirlwind tour of the Southwest, Mr. Ivey was one of his hosts. The Ambassador expressed amazement at the large scale of the long staple operation in the area.
Mr. Ivey could trace the development of American-Egyptian strains from the date when "mit afifi", the first foreign seed introduced in the U. S. was tested. From it came the Yuma strain in 1907 to be replaced in 1919 by Pima. By 1947 the endless fields of the Southwest were turning out large crops of SXP. The Amsak strain had already been developed and subsequent experimentation saw the development of the stronger Pima 32 strain.
At Mr. Ivey’s suggestion and prodding, the Department of Agriculture revised their cotton testing formulas to give truer reflections of tested long staple fibers in allow mill owners to make the necessary mechanical adjustments to handle the higher quality American-Egyptian strains. Purchases and prices increased and knowledgeable cotton leaders now credit Mr. Ivey with saving the irrigated cotton industry in the U. S.
During his term in the 1949 -1950 State Legislature, Mr. Ivey fathered the vital bill which created cotton research programs for the University of Texas, Texas A & M and Texas Technological College. The bill was defeated once but Mr. Ivey persisted and was eventually successful in passage of this important legislation. As a result, fiber and spinning tests, as well as production experiments, are conducted constantly and the Texas Cotton Farmer now has a concerted program of development and improvement to back him up in his work.
From 1951 to 1967 Mr. Ivey returned to growing cotton on his three Reeves and Pecos County farms which consisted of 730 acres of cotton and 832 acres of other crops. But, he always found time to help the cotton industry.
Louis J. Ivey truly deserved the title ”MR. COTTON” that was bestowed on him by the Southwestern Crop and Stock – August 1951, Article by Ed Engledow.
By: Louis & John Ivey
sons of Louis J. Ivey