After all, it is a museum, a testament to the huge cotton market in Augusta in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

It is now called the Historic Cotton Exchange Welcome Center and houses the museum and offices of the Augusta-Richmond County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

But when cotton was king in Augusta, Georgia and the South, the three-story building was called the Augusta Cotton Exchange, where men (only) came to trade the white gold.

Augusta was at the heart of the state's cotton trade in the late 1800s to the early 1920s. As an inland market for cotton, it was second only to Memphis, Tenn.

Augusta Exchange and Board of Trade members constructed the building in 1886 to have a place to buy and sell cotton, according to a history of the building and museum exhibits.

The Augusta Cotton Exchange once had more than 200 members, many from European countries such as England, France and Germany, and some from India and South America.

The Exchange members -- cotton factories, brokers, merchants and mill buyers -- bought the lot where the building now stands from Edward Molyneaux of Liverpool, England.

Nine bonds at $1,000 each were sold to finance the building, which housed the trading floor, on the first floor, and offices for the brokers, who sold the cotton. James Tobin was president of the Exchange at the time.

Besides serving as a place of business, the Exchange was a place to play checkers, gamble and visit during the day and witness cockfights and bet on football games after hours -- a man's getaway, because women were not allowed, museum exhibits say.

The busiest time was the fall harvest season, and the Exchange was the center of action back then.

The boll weevil, the hated insect that demolished the Southern cotton economy, helped decrease the luster of King Cotton in Georgia when it invaded in 1921. And the use of synthetic fabrics, introduced in the 1940s, further eroded cotton's market.

The Exchange building was last used by brokers in 1964. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It had deteriorated after a fire in 1920.

In 1985, Augusta Tomorrow Inc. bought the building, and in 1988, Aiken resident Bill Moore bought it. He was moved to restore the architectural beauty of the Queen Anne and Second French Empire styled edifice.

With his own funds and facade grants from the city of Augusta, he restored the building. The third floor and original roof line were destroyed, but were replaced in the restoration.

During the restoration, a 45-foot blackboard that had been hidden by wallboard was revealed. The blackboard, which has the original market price quotes and information about the cotton trade and other commodities and currency from the early 1900s, was found after a casual mention that the blackboard existed.

It took more than a year and $750,000 to achieve the restoration.

The building is being leased by the city of Augusta.

Schoolchildren and others come to visit the museum and gain information about Augusta. Officials have said the museum sees at least 30,000 people a year. A major draw is the cotton history.

There is no doubt that the Cotton Exchange is a true piece of Augusta's history, as well as being a beautiful architectual landmark. For more information, you can call the Cotton Exchange at (706) 724-4067