Original Site of First Oil Mill in Texas
Schulenburg, Fayette County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Erected by Frederick Hillje, 1866, using German-made sugar beet crusher adapted locally to seed processing. Later enlarged plant had regular milling machinery for cottonseed. After Galveston, Houston & San Antonio Railroad bypassed High Hill, Hillje moved mill to Weimar, 1880. (1967)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1866, Frederick Hillje set up what is remembered as Texas's first oil mill, ingeniously adapting a German-made sugar-beet crusher to press seed. He soon expanded to proper milling machinery for cottonseed, turning a plantation byproduct into a marketable oil. When the railroad bypassed High Hill in 1880, Hillje simply moved the whole operation to Weimar to follow the tracks.
Why it matters
The mill marks the birth of Texas's cottonseed-oil industry, an early instance of the improvisation and rail-driven relocation that industrialized Southern agriculture after the Civil War.
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Related people
- · Frederick Hillje
Themes & tags
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