Marble Falls Factory Site
Marble Falls, Burnet County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The potential of water power on the Colorado River led town developer Gen. Adam R. Johnson and Farmers Alliance members to build a cotton mill on this site in the 1890s. The two-story stone factory, 300 ft. long and 100 ft. wide, was erected for the Marble Falls Cotton and Woolen Co., formed in 1892. New machinery run by hydroelectric power was installed by the Marble Falls Textile Mills Co. In the 1920s, woolen goods, surgical gauze, and air conditioners were made here before the factory was gutted by fire in 1964 and razed in 1971. (1977)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Drawn by the water power of the Colorado River, town developer Gen. Adam R. Johnson and members of the Farmers Alliance built a cotton mill on this site in the 1890s. The two-story stone factory stretched 300 feet long, and new hydroelectric-powered machinery kept it running into the twentieth century. Over the decades it produced woolen goods, surgical gauze, and even air conditioners before fire gutted it in 1964 and it was razed in 1971.
Why it matters
The mill shows how Gilded Age Texans harnessed river power and cooperative farming movements to bring industry to the rural Hill Country.
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Related people
- · Adam R. Johnson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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