Site of The Confederate Hat Factory in Marshall, C.S.A.
Marshall, Harrison County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Texas had very few factories in 1861 when she joined the Confederate States of America and went to war on the issue of states' rights. Some of the manufacturing plants necessary to supply military goods were thereupon established in and around Marshall, which later (1863) became headquarters for Confederate operations west of the Mississippi River. At the site of this marker, there was operated in the basement of a dwelling house a factory which brought high quality fur felt from a plant situated on Young's Mill Pond near Hallsville (13 mi. W). and made military hats to outfit Texas soldiers and other troops fighting for the Confederacy. Some 40 men were employed here in blocking and finishing hats and in making blankets and saddle blankets. Successive generations of the Edmund Key family owned and occupied the house where the Confederate Hat Factory had been operated during the Civil War. After the structure burned in 1962 the Key family tendered (in 1975) the site to the Harrison County Conservation Society as a park dedicated in memory of civic leaders Edmund and Rae Lyttleton Key.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
With Texas nearly devoid of factories when it joined the Confederacy in 1861, Marshall became a hub of wartime manufacturing and, by 1863, headquarters for Confederate operations west of the Mississippi. In the basement of a dwelling here, some forty workers blocked and finished high-quality fur-felt military hats and stitched blankets to outfit Texas soldiers. The site later passed through generations of the Edmund Key family before becoming a memorial park.
Why it matters
It captures how a cotton frontier with almost no industry improvised the manufacturing base a modern war demanded — one basement workshop at a time.
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Related people
- · Edmund Key
- · Rae Lyttleton Key
Themes & tags
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