However, the interest in cottonseed oil so far was more journalistic than commercial, for it has been rather generally assumed that the first important undertaking to crush cottonseed in the United States was at Natchez, Mississippi, in 1834,” and one might well expect that it would be in the Mississippi Valley that successful establishment would be accomplished of a business that was dependent on the combination of abundant cotton crops and economical transportation. Among those interested directly or indirectly in the Natchez project were J. H. Cooper and Samuel Plummer, of Georgia, Major Anderson Miller, of Louisville, a Virginian bearing the name of Follett, and Archibald Dunbar, of Mississippi. Mills were started at Mobile, Alabama, and Florence, Georgia, about the same time, and late in 1835 the Louisiana legislature incorporated a “Cotton Seed Oil Factory and Insurance Company” to be operated at New Orleans. To encourage the new activity a resolution of the New Orleans city council required the mayor to purchase cottonseed oil, presumably for city lighting.“7 Yet all these efforts were greeted with loss and failure.