Haynes Mattress Factory
Sealy, Austin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Daniel Haynes (1828-1913) came to the new railroad town of Sealy in 1881. In 1885 he invented a process and a machine to manufacture a felted cotton, non-tufted mattress. Trademarked under the Haynes name, the mattresses were sold throughout the country and soon became associated with the name Sealy. In 1906 Haynes sold his patents to another company, which adopted the name Sealy. Haynes opened a new mattress factory at this site in 1909. It remained in operation after his death, maintaining its reputation as one of Sealy's primary industries until 1976. (1991)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Daniel Haynes arrived in the new railroad town of Sealy in 1881, and in 1885 he invented both a process and a machine for making a felted, non-tufted cotton mattress. Sold nationwide under his trademark, the mattresses became so identified with the town that when Haynes sold his patents in 1906 the buyer took the name Sealy. Haynes opened a new factory on this site in 1909, and it remained one of the town's leading industries until 1976.
Why it matters
A single inventor in a small Texas railroad town gave his community's name to what became one of America's best-known mattress brands, a reminder that national industries often sprang from local ingenuity.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Daniel Haynes
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sealy
Sealy, TX
Sealy sprang up in 1879 along the new Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railroad, taking its name from Galveston businessman and railroad president George Sealy. A depot, roundhouse, turntable, and machine shops made it a busy division point between Galveston and Temple, with the railroad as its chief employer and trains rumbling through daily. When the division point moved to Bellville in 1899, Sealy leaned on cotton, additional rail lines, and diversified business to keep thriving, incorporating in 1949.
Haynes-Felcman House
Sealy, TX
Built in 1901–1902 for H. Schumacher in Sealy, this Queen Anne residence passed in 1906 to Richard H. Haynes, who with his father founded the Haynes (Sealy) Mattress Company in 1909. Confectioner F. J. Felcman bought the house in 1927 and enlarged it, and it stayed in his family into the 1990s. Its projecting gable, wood shingles, stained glass, and jigsawn brackets make it a fine example of late-Victorian domestic style.
Citizens State Bank
Sealy, TX
Sealy grew up along the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway in the cotton-and-cattle economy of the 1880s, and in 1907 Citizens State Bank opened in a new commercial building on Main Street. Under its first president, R. A. Engelking, the bank weathered money panics and the Great Depression, emerging by the 1930s as the only bank left in town. Decades of steady growth and unusually loyal employees carried it past its centennial.
Preibisch Building
Sealy, TX
German immigrant Adolph Preibisch reached Austin County in 1860 and, after the railroad town of Sealy grew up, hired mason John Colleton to build this brick commercial block in 1886-1887 from local Brazos River clay. Preibisch sold furniture and household goods — and, like many early dealers, made and sold funeral caskets. Over the decades the building housed a grocery, jeweler, and even a saloon-pool hall called "My Place" used in early films, staying in the family until 1946.