Oconee used to be a cotton-picking county!

In a county known today for its lakes and major power project, it might be hard for someone to get his hands around the fact that as late as the 1940s, Oconee was a cotton-growing county.  It’s no problem for Lowell Ross.  He once had his hands on cotton plants, having picked cotton at 14 years old.  But, for all of the hard work, you were likely to have gone home at the end of the day with as little as two cents for every pound you picked.  In the 40s, Ross says, cotton was the Oconee County economy.  But cotton went on the decline, and Ross quotes retired farm agent A-D Boggs as saying the last time it was grown commercially in Oconee was 1975 in South Union.