HistoricSiteMarkers
Civil War

Site of Hussey & Logan's Mill and Gin Factory

Daingerfield, Morris County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Made machinery to process most important crops in Texas: gin saws to take seeds from cotton, for cloth-making; grist mills to grind corn into meal for bread. During Civil War, when mills or parts could not be imported, gave vital aid to Texas in the handling of cotton-- the only cash crop, called "money of the Confederacy," as it was traded in Mexico to obtain ammunition, medicines and other goods. Other wartime plants in Texas made wagons, guns, powder, shoes, hospital supplies, kettles, pot, leather goods, clothes. One item was 1,712,328 yards of cloth.

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

This factory built the machinery that kept Texas agriculture running: gin saws to strip seed from cotton and grist mills to grind corn into meal. When the Civil War cut off imports, such local works became vital, letting Texas process the cotton that served as the "money of the Confederacy"—traded across the Mexican border for ammunition, medicine, and other goods. The war spurred a whole network of Texas plants making wagons, guns, powder, shoes, and cloth.

Why it matters

It illustrates how the Confederacy's isolation forced Texas to improvise its own wartime industry, with cotton machinery underpinning the entire economy.

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Related events

  • · American Civil War

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

Daingerfield, C. S. A.

Daingerfield, TX

Founded about 1830 at a spring where Captain London Daingerfield was killed, this East Texas town became a Confederate hub during the Civil War. Several army units enrolled here, and local tanyards, sawmills, a gristmill, a distillery, and foundries supplied leather, meal, and iron to the war effort—those foundries foreshadowing the later Lone Star Steel Company. The square, laid out in 1841, had already seen frontier drama, including an 1842 trial tied to the killing of Robert Potter of the Regulator-Moderator Feud.

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