Double Mountain Salt Works (on Brazos River)
Jayton, Kent County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On Indian-infested frontier 125 miles beyond Fort Belknap and outer settlements. Northernmost business in Confederate Texas. Established at great risk, to obtain salt, scarce during Civil War and vitally needed to cure meat, season food, cure hides for leather, feed work horses, army draft mules and cavalry horses. Texas Legislature appropriated funds for the explorations on the Brazos by a civil engineer. Double Mountain spring water proved to be 98% salt, a nearby lake 45%. Reduction of brine was under control of Texas Military Board. Troops guarded the work. (1965)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Deep on the Comanche frontier, more than a hundred miles beyond the outer forts, this Brazos River salt works was the northernmost business in Confederate Texas. Salt had become desperately scarce during the Civil War, yet it was essential for curing meat and hides and keeping army animals fed, so the state funded exploration that found spring water nearly pure salt. The reduction of the brine was overseen by the Texas Military Board, with troops standing guard over the dangerous, isolated work.
Why it matters
It shows how a blockaded South scrambled for everyday necessities, turning a remote frontier spring into a strategic wartime industry.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Picture Texas in the middle of the Civil War. The state had joined the Confederacy in 1861, and before long a Union naval blockade was squeezing the Southern coastline. Goods that people had always bought without a second thought became scarce, expensive, or simply unavailable. Salt was one of the most painful shortages of all.
Today salt seems cheap and ordinary. In the 1860s it kept a household, a farm, and an army running. Without refrigeration, salt was how you preserved pork and beef through the year. Tanners needed it to cure hides into leather for boots, saddles, and harness. Horses and mules needed it in their feed, and an army that moved on animal power could not do without it. Across the South, towns and state governments went looking for any salt they could find.
This Brazos River site sat far out on the edge of settled Texas. It was more than a hundred miles past Fort Belknap and the outer settlements, in country that Comanche and other Plains nations still held and defended. The marker's 1965 wording reflects how Anglo Texans of the time saw that frontier. Today we would say it plainly: this was contested land, and its Native peoples were fighting to keep it.
People & events
The story starts with a problem and a state trying to solve it. The Texas Legislature put up money to send a civil engineer up the Brazos to look for salt. Somewhere in that broken, red-rock country near Double Mountain, the search paid off. The spring water there turned out to be almost pure salt, 98 percent by the marker's count. A nearby lake held water that was 45 percent salt.
Finding the salt was only half the job. Getting it out meant boiling or evaporating huge amounts of brine until the crystals were left behind, and that took fuel, kettles, labor, and time. The work was placed under the Texas Military Board, which shows how seriously the state took it: this salt counted as a war supply, the same as powder or cloth.
The men at the works were exposed on every side. They were far from help, on land its Native inhabitants had not given up, and troops were posted to guard them while they worked. The marker calls it the northernmost business in Confederate Texas. That meant a lonely camp of kettles and smoke at the ragged outer edge of the state, run at real risk for something as humble as salt.
Its place in the American story
Civil War history is usually told through battles. But the war was also decided by supply, and the Confederacy's supply problems were severe. The blockade, the loss of territory, and a thin railroad network meant that Southern states often had to make for themselves what they had once imported. Salt shows this better than almost anything else. Across the Confederacy, saltworks became places worth guarding and worth attacking.
Double Mountain is a Texas chapter of that larger story. It shows a state government using public money, engineers, and soldiers to push a basic industry out onto its far frontier because there was no other choice. It also shows how the Civil War in Texas ran into another, older conflict: the struggle between settlers and the Native nations of the Southern Plains.
For travelers, it's a reminder that the war reached well beyond the famous battlefields back east. It was felt in kitchens, tanneries, and cavalry stables, and in lonely places like this bend of the Brazos where people boiled brine under armed guard.
If you visit
You're in the wide-open country of Kent County and the rolling plains, where the land breaks into red canyons and mesas along the Brazos and its forks. Take your time with the landscape. The distances that made this salt works so dangerous are still easy to see, with long views, few towns, and a big sky.
As you stand by the marker, picture the whole operation: brine drawn from a spring, fires kept burning under kettles, wagons waiting to haul the salt back toward the settlements, and soldiers watching the horizon. Nothing about the work was glamorous, and that's why it's worth thinking about. Salt kept the whole wartime economy alive.
This stop fits well on a slow road trip across West Texas plains history, where frontier forts, ranch country, and small county seats are spread far apart. Bring water, fill your tank when you can, and give the country the same respect its earlier travelers had to give it.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related events
- · American Civil War
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