Site of Fraser Brick Company
Emory, Rains County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Here in 1905 Walter B. Fraser (1877-1968) built a pioneer Texas factory which produced bricks and hollow clay building tile. This was the first industrial plant in Rains County and it employed about 40 men. When, in 1909, a post office was established near here, its name "Ginger" was taken from the distinctive color of the burnt clay bricks made at the plant. Operations ceased when this clay supply neared exhaustion in the 1940s. Walter B. Fraser retired in 1944. The business prospered at its other Texas locations until sold in 1961. (1968)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1905 Walter B. Fraser built a pioneering plant here that turned local clay into bricks and hollow building tile — the first industrial factory in Rains County, employing about forty men. When a post office opened nearby in 1909, it took the name "Ginger" from the distinctive burnt-clay color of the bricks. Operations wound down as the clay supply neared exhaustion in the 1940s, though the wider business prospered at other Texas sites until it was sold in 1961.
Why it matters
The brickworks marks the arrival of industry in a rural Texas county, showing how local raw materials could seed manufacturing and even name a town.
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Related people
- · Walter B. Fraser
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Amis House
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Between 1910 and 1912, James Alexander Amis hand-poured and cured the cast-concrete blocks for this unusual family home in Emory. Amis was a one-man engine of local enterprise, running a sawmill, lumberyard, truck farm, livestock operations, a pickle factory, and an undertaking business. He even sponsored a 1914 hot-air balloon flight over town and later championed building Highway 19 through the city.
Rains County
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Among the earlier-settled parts of Texas, this area saw J. H. Hooker, its first known settler, build a grist mill on the Sabine River in the 1840s, with emigrants from the Old South arriving after 1840. The county itself was not organized until 1870, taking its name from pioneer legislator Emory Rains, who had represented the surrounding district in the 8th Legislature. Rains County is also celebrated as the birthplace of the Farmers Cooperative and Educational Union of America.
Near Offices of "Rains County Leader"
Emory, TX
Founded in 1887 by H. W. Martin as "The Argus," this paper became the "Rains County Leader" by 1900 and remained the county's only newspaper. Tom W. Hill, Sr. bought it in 1904 and edited it for more than three decades, beginning a remarkable family stewardship. From 1937 onward the Hill family—father, sons, and daughters—carried the paper forward across generations.
Smyrna Union Church
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On this spot in 1902 stood the schoolhouse where ten local farmers founded the first local of the Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union of America, better known as the National Farmers Union. Vowing to "secure equity, establish justice and apply the Golden Rule," the organization grew from this rural Texas meeting into a national force in American agriculture. A church later rose on the site, and a tablet honors the founders by name.