Site of Knox Glass Company Plant
Palestine, Anderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1941, Chester Underwood of Pennsylvania-based Knox Glass Bottle Co. called Jim Keller, a company representative in Texas, with plans for a new plant. Product demand in the western United States for bottling and canning operations had increased, and Underwood asked Keller to scout locations for a plant with good rail access. Keller met with the Palestine Chamber of Commerce and banker Clifford Huffsmith, who in turn worked with bankers Clyde Hanks, J.E. Angly and others to identify area resources, including transportation. The final deal included natural gas provided by brothers Julian and Jack Meeker, and a Missouri Pacific Railroad spur to the plant site. The new facility began production on July 5, 1941. It housed a 90-ton-capacity furnace and equipment for manufacturing clear glass; Frank Hicks served as plant manager for 10 years. Company officials and area residents celebrated with a formal dedication on July 19. Employees belonged to unions related to their jobs, which varied from mixing and machine operations to mold makers and packing. Products included glass jars for the food industry and home bottling. The Knox plant played a vital role in the local economy for decades, with more than 450 employees at its peak. Glass Container Corp. purchased Knox Glass in 1969, but demands of a changing industry led to closure of the plant in 1984. The final glass jars manufactured here, bearing the closing date, Dec. 20, 1984, serve as souvenirs for three generations of area residents for whom the Knox plant represented a secure way of life. (2006)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1941 the Pennsylvania-based Knox Glass Bottle Company chose Palestine for a new plant, drawn by rail access, cheap natural gas, and an eager chamber of commerce that assembled the deal. Its 90-ton furnace began turning out clear glass jars that July, and at its peak the plant employed more than 450 people making containers for the food and home-canning trades. It anchored the local economy for over four decades before closing in 1984, its final dated jars kept as keepsakes.
Why it matters
The Knox plant illustrates how a single manufacturer could underwrite a town's prosperity for generations, and how shifting industry could take that security away.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1941, the United States stood at the edge of enormous change. The Great Depression was loosening its grip, and the demand for manufactured goods was climbing — especially the everyday containers that carried food across a growing, mobile nation. Bottling and canning were booming, and the humble glass jar was suddenly a product in high demand.
Palestine, in the pine woods of East Texas, was the kind of town that could seize such a moment. It had rail connections, access to natural gas, and — crucially — a chamber of commerce and local bankers ready to work together to land a major employer. In an era when a single factory could define a community's fortunes, competition for such plants was real, and towns that could organize resources quickly had the advantage.
This was the Progressive and Modern era, when American industry was learning to place its plants where transportation, fuel, and willing communities came together. The story of the Knox plant begins with a phone call, but it rests on a whole town's readiness to answer it.
People & events
It started when Chester Underwood of the Pennsylvania-based Knox Glass Bottle Company called Jim Keller, the firm's representative in Texas, with plans for a new plant to meet rising demand in the western states. Underwood wanted a site with good rail access, and Keller went looking.
What followed was a model of local cooperation. Keller met with the Palestine Chamber of Commerce and banker Clifford Huffsmith, who pulled in fellow bankers Clyde Hanks, J.E. Angly, and others to assemble the resources a factory would need — above all, transportation. The final deal secured natural gas from brothers Julian and Jack Meeker and a Missouri Pacific Railroad spur running right to the plant site.
Production began on July 5, 1941, in a facility built around a 90-ton-capacity furnace turning out clear glass. A formal dedication followed on July 19, celebrated by company officials and townspeople alike. Frank Hicks served as plant manager for its first ten years. Workers belonged to unions matched to their trades — mixing, machine operation, mold making, packing — and the plant turned out jars for the food industry and home canning. At its peak it employed more than 450 people. Glass Container Corporation bought Knox Glass in 1969, but a changing industry brought the plant to a close on December 20, 1984; the last jars, stamped with that date, became keepsakes.
Its place in the American story
The Knox plant tells one of the defining American stories of the twentieth century: the company town, or nearly so, where a single manufacturer underwrites the livelihoods of a whole community for generations. For more than four decades, the plant meant a secure way of life for families in and around Palestine — steady union work passed down through, as the marker notes, three generations.
It also captures the machinery of American industrial growth in miniature. A plant did not simply appear; it was courted. Chambers of commerce, local bankers, railroads, and fuel suppliers all had to align, and towns across the country competed to offer exactly the package Palestine assembled in 1941. This is how industrial America was built — deal by deal, spur line by spur line.
And its closing in 1984 is just as representative. Across the late twentieth century, plants that had anchored communities for generations shut their doors as industries consolidated and changed. The final dated jars, kept as souvenirs, stand for something felt in countless American towns: the pride of good work, and the quiet grief when the work goes away.
If you visit
This is a site marked more by memory than by standing structures, so come ready to imagine. Picture the 90-ton furnace glowing at its heart, the rail spur curving in from the Missouri Pacific line, and the shifts of workers — mixers, machine operators, mold makers, packers — moving through a plant that ran for over forty years.
The most tangible connection you can make is with the jars themselves. Knox glass jars, and especially the final ones stamped December 20, 1984, are treasured by area families. If you spend time in Palestine, you may well find these keepsakes in local hands or collections — physical proof of the plant that shaped so many lives here.
Set against East Texas's railroad and timber heritage, this stop deepens a road trip through the region's working past. Stand where the plant stood and consider how a single phone call in 1941 rippled outward for generations — a reminder that much of American history happened not in capitals but on factory floors like this one.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Chester Underwood
- · Jim Keller
- · Frank Hicks
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
I & GN Hospital and Nurses' Quarters
Palestine, TX
Established in 1884, the International & Great Northern Railway Employees' Hospital Association ran on monthly employee dues to care for railroad workers all along the I&GN lines from this trackside site in Palestine. The original frame buildings gave way in 1920 to a brick hospital—with pharmacy, laboratories, clinic, and ambulance-served emergency room—and a 1925 nurses' quarters, both in Georgian Revival style by Houston architect Alfred C. Finn. Taken over by the Missouri-Pacific in the 1930s, the hospital served until 1970.
The I&GN Railroad in Palestine
Palestine, TX
Named the Anderson County seat in 1846, Palestine first grew on Trinity River steamboat trade that stalled whenever low water forced residents back onto ox-drawn wagons. Local leaders courted the railroad, and when the line that became the International and Great Northern arrived in 1872 — soon relocating its headquarters, shops, and roundhouse here — it became the town's largest employer for decades. Recruited workers arrived from across the nation and abroad, and to spare the old courthouse square the noise of trains the line was routed west, spawning a separate 'New Town' that took years to blend with the old.
William and Caroline Broyles House
Palestine, TX
An Alabama native, William Broyles came to Texas after the Civil War—traveling by boat to Shreveport and then on foot to Palestine—where he worked as a carpenter before opening a mercantile store and, in 1878, a lumber business with its own yard, sawmill, and cabinet shop. A merchant and real estate investor, he helped drive the town's economic growth and in 1895 built this ornate home for his wife Caroline. Designed by local architect Luther McKlemurry, it blends Italianate, Queen Anne, and Second Empire styles, its fine woodwork crafted by Broyles' own lumber company.
Home of Congressman and Mrs. Alexander W. Gregg
Palestine, TX
Congressman Alexander W. Gregg lived in this Palestine house, built between 1886 and 1892, at the peak of a career that carried him from the Texas Senate to the U.S. Congress from 1903 to 1919. A University of Virginia–trained lawyer, he was instrumental in securing the federal seawall that protected Galveston from the kind of catastrophe the 1900 hurricane had inflicted. His home stands as a reminder of the era's turn toward public works and disaster protection.