Knippa Trap Rock Plant
Knippa, Uvalde County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Volcanic lava deposited here more than 60 million years ago cooled and hardened over time to form basalt, a dark igneous rock also known as trap rock. M. B. (Pete) Walcott purchased acreage here about 1904 and in 1907 formed the Genevieve Mining Co. to search for gold. Although little gold was found, substantial quantities of high quality trap rock were discovered. The Texas Trap Rock Company established a quarry about 1911 and shipments of rock began in 1912. A large highly-visible screening house was completed in 1914. By 1919 Knippa's trap rock plant, the largest in Texas at that time, was capable of producing about 100,000 tons of trap rock per year. The company transported the trap rock by spur line to the Southern Pacific Railroad in nearby Knippa. The company and its employees became an integral part of the community. Knippa High School named its football team the "Rockcrushers" in 1946. The trap rock operation, purchased by White's Mine Company in 1968, was acquired by Vulcan Materials Company in 1987. Trap rock has been applied to various uses such as railroad ballast, decorative stone, and as insulation material. Its historic and primary use, however, has been as a road paving material. 1994
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The dark basalt beneath Knippa formed from volcanic lava that cooled more than 60 million years ago into the hard igneous stone known as trap rock. A prospector's 1907 search for gold turned up little of the metal but vast quantities of high-quality rock instead, and by 1919 the quarry here was the largest trap-rock operation in Texas, capable of producing about 100,000 tons a year and shipping it out by spur line to the Southern Pacific. So woven into the town was the plant that Knippa High named its team the "Rockcrushers" in 1946.
Why it matters
The quarry shows how a region's geology can define a town's economy and identity — here, paving the roads that knit modern Texas together.
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Related people
- · M. B. Walcott
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Town of Knippa
Knippa, TX
Reached by the railroad in 1882, this fertile stretch of Uvalde County was settled in 1887 by freighter George Knippa, who lured friends to the land he knew from hauling between East Texas and Mexico. A bearded stranger tried his luck at gold-mining here in 1899, a post office arrived in 1900, and the platted town—once called Chatfield—took Knippa's name. The Trap Rock Mine, opened in 1913, still works the local stone.
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