West Texas Woolen Mills
Eldorado, Schleicher County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Introduced to this area in 1883, sheep existed in large numbers throughout the region by the 1930s. Prominent local banker Joseph B. Christian and his son, textile engineer Joe Muller Christian, erected this native stone building to house the West Texas Woolen Mills. Texas governor W. Lee O'Daniel attended the grand opening in 1941. In 1942 the plant was awarded a major World War II contract to manufacture Army blankets. After a successful conversion to postwar production, the mill became a major contributor to the area's economy. The Christians sold the landmark mill in 1963. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1995
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Sheep flooded the West Texas range after 1883, and by the 1930s wool was big business around Eldorado. Banker Joseph B. Christian and his textile-engineer son built this native-stone mill to spin that wool, opening in 1941 with Governor W. Lee O'Daniel on hand. The next year the plant won a major wartime contract to weave Army blankets, then converted successfully to peacetime work and anchored the local economy until its sale in 1963.
Why it matters
The mill shows how a remote ranching region tied its fortunes to national markets and the World War II mobilization that turned even small-town factories into arsenals of the war effort.
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Related people
- · Joseph B. Christian
- · Joe Muller Christian
- · W. Lee O'Daniel
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First National Bank Building
Eldorado, TX
When local investors raised $30,000 to charter the First National Bank of Eldorado in 1906, they hired contractors Drew and Harvey to build a home for it from native limestone the following year. The Renaissance Revival design, with segmented arches and a three-part parapet crowned by spherical finials, announced permanence and prosperity to a young ranching town. The bank merged in 1913 and left in 1942, after which the building found new life as a pool and domino hall.
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Christopher Columbus Doty (1857–1944) came to Texas from Missouri in 1879 and soon claimed the headquarters at Ten-Mile Water Hole, becoming the first permanent citizen of what would become Schleicher County. In 1882 he drilled the county's first water well and raised the first windmill south of the Concho River — the kind of innovation that unlocked ranching and farming across the arid West Texas plains. When the county organized in 1901, his land was included and he was elected its first tax assessor-collector.
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