Sherman Manufacturing Company
Sherman, Grayson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Sherman Seamless Bag Mill was founded here in 1891, to serve the cotton industry of North Central Texas. Elected to board of directors on March 18, 1891, were C. A. Andrews, Edward Eastburn, W. C. Eubank, Thomas Forbes, J. F. Jaques, J. C. Jones, Tom Randolph, Z. E. Raney, and J. C. Tassey to serve as chairman. Elegant cornerstone was shipped from Cromwell, Mass., to go into the original structure. Suffering from financial problems during those early years, the plant operated and closed intermittently. Acquired in 1906 by Wellington-Sears Company of New York who added buildings and centered production upon single-filling flat duck. Purchased, 1946, by Ely Walker & Company of St. Louis, Missouri; wide sheeting became main product. Merged into Burlington Industries, Inc., 1955. Cornerstone of original building opened 1956. Disclosed old coins, 1891 newspapers, timetable for trains to Indian territory (now state of Oklahoma), saloon tokens and menu from Binkley Hotel Coffee Shop. A portion of the original structure remains as a useful part of this modern plant. Through Burlington's International organization, products made here are sold in market places throughout the world. (1967)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1891 as the Sherman Seamless Bag Mill, this plant rose to serve the booming cotton industry of North Central Texas. After rocky early years of intermittent operation, it was acquired by out-of-state textile firms, expanded its product lines to heavy duck and wide sheeting, and eventually merged into Burlington Industries in 1955. When the original cornerstone was opened in 1956, it revealed old coins, 1891 newspapers, and saloon tokens—small time capsules of the frontier town.
Why it matters
The mill shows how a Gilded Age cotton town wove itself into national and eventually global industry, a common arc for Southern manufacturing.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1891 Sherman was a busy county seat in the middle of some of the richest cotton country in Texas. The Blackland Prairie and Red River farmland of North Central Texas grew huge crops of cotton after the Civil War. Railroads had pulled the region into the national market, so bales could leave Grayson County for mills and ports far away.
For most of the 1800s, though, the South grew the cotton and the North spun it. The big textile mills were in New England, and much of the wealth made from Southern fiber flowed there. By the end of the century, towns across the South were trying to change that. Local businessmen raised money to build factories next to the cotton fields, hoping to keep more of the profit, and more of the jobs, at home.
Sherman's seamless bag mill was part of that movement. Cotton had to be bagged, shipped and stored, and a factory making sturdy seamless bags for the trade was a natural fit for a town surrounded by gins and cotton yards. To the north, just across the Red River, lay Indian Territory. Sherman sat on the edge of the settled Texas frontier and was building its industrial future at the same time.
People & events
The mill started with a group of local leaders. In March 1891 its first board of directors was elected, nine Sherman men with J. C. Tassey as chairman. They were betting that a town known for cotton could also become a town known for making cotton goods. To mark the occasion they ordered an elegant cornerstone from Cromwell, Massachusetts. The stone came from New England, the heart of the industry Sherman hoped to compete with.
The bet was harder to win than it looked. In its early years the plant struggled with money and opened and closed several times. That was common for young Southern mills, which often had too little capital and faced strong competition. In 1906 the New York firm Wellington-Sears Company bought the plant, added buildings and shifted production to single-filling flat duck, a heavy, tightly woven cotton cloth. In 1946 Ely Walker & Company of St. Louis bought it and made wide sheeting the main product. In 1955 it became part of Burlington Industries.
The best part of the story came a year later. When the original cornerstone was opened in 1956, workers found a small time capsule of 1891 Sherman: old coins, newspapers from the founding year, a timetable for trains into Indian Territory, saloon tokens, and a menu from the Binkley Hotel Coffee Shop. Those everyday objects show what the founders thought was worth saving: the news of the day, the railroad that connected them to the frontier, and the places where townspeople ate and drank.
Its place in the American story
This mill's life follows one of the big economic stories in American history, the move of textile manufacturing from New England to the South. Around 1900, factories spread across the cotton states. Over the next several decades the South became the center of the country's textile industry, and many New England mill towns declined.
The owners tell the same story. The mill was started with local money, bought by a New York firm, then by a St. Louis company, and finally folded into Burlington Industries, which grew into one of the largest textile makers in the country. The plant moved from local ambition to regional business to national corporation. By the time the marker went up, its products were being sold around the world.
The cornerstone objects add something the business history leaves out. Train schedules into Indian Territory and saloon tokens are reminders that this factory was founded while Oklahoma was not yet a state. In one lifetime, a frontier town became part of a global industry.
If you visit
Look at the setting as well as the marker. The inscription says part of the original 1891 building survived as part of the later plant. It's worth looking for older masonry among the newer industrial structures. Mills like this usually grew in layers, and each owner added on.
Think about the cornerstone as you stand there: a stone shipped from Massachusetts, sealed with a small collection of 1891 life, and opened 65 years later. It's a good story to share with kids. You can ask them what they would put in a time capsule for their own town.
Sherman fits easily into a North Texas road trip. Its courthouse square and older neighborhoods give a sense of the cotton-era town that built this mill, and the Red River and the Oklahoma line are a short drive north. Driving that way, you retrace the route those old train timetables once advertised.
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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