Site of a Munition Factory
Anderson, Grimes County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site of a munition factory of the Southern Confederacy. Established in 1861. In operation until 1865. Cannon, cannon balls, guns, pistols, swords, sabers, bayonets and gun powder were manufactured. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On this spot from 1861 to 1865 stood a Confederate munitions factory, turning out cannon, cannonballs, guns, pistols, swords, sabers, bayonets, and gunpowder for the Southern war effort. Marked by the State of Texas in 1936, it recalls the improvised industrial base the Confederacy raised far from the front lines.
Why it matters
Sites like this show how the Civil War forced the agrarian South to manufacture its own weapons, deep in the Texas interior.
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Related events
- · American Civil War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Grimes County, C.S.A.
Anderson, TX
Densely settled and richly agricultural, Grimes County threw itself behind the Confederacy, voting for secession 907 to 9 and sending nine companies to the army. Its ordnance works at Anderson turned out cannon, cannonballs, firearms, swords, and gunpowder, and a military telegraph line crossed the county on its way from Houston to Marshall. In a darker episode, five men accused of treason were held in the Anderson jail in 1864 under the suspension of habeas corpus before being deported to Mexico.
Grimes County
Anderson, TX
The ground here carries layers of Texas history: a road used in 1690 by Spanish explorer Alonso de León, the 1821 arrival of settler Andrew Millican, and Henry Fanthorp's inn and post office of the 1830s. The town took its name from Kenneth Anderson, the Republic of Texas's last vice-president, who died at Fanthorp's inn in 1845. Organized in 1846 and named for Declaration signer Jesse Grimes, the county even ran a gun factory and supplied troops during the Civil War.
Michael Moore Kennard
Anderson, TX
Born in Tennessee, Michael Moore Kennard brought his family to Texas in 1830 as part of Robertson's Colony, likely pausing along the way to raise a crop. He received a large land grant in what is now Grimes County and earned still more land for his service in the Texas Revolution. His trading firm, Fanthorp, Womack & Kennard, was the county's first mercantile business.
Site of Piedmont Springs Resort
Anderson, TX
By 1850 the sulphur springs near Anderson had drawn health-seekers to Piedmont Springs, where bathhouses and drinking pavilions let guests take the waters. A grand four-story, hundred-room hotel built around 1860 became the social heart of the region — billiards, poker, horse races, and, by legend, a minuet danced by Sam Houston himself. War transformed it in 1865 into a hospital and headquarters for John G. Walker's Confederate "Greyhound Division," and financial panic shuttered it in the 1870s.