Confederate Hat Factory in Marshall, C.S.A.

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.

Confederate Hat Factory in Marshall, C.S.A. is a historical marker in Marshall, Harrison County, dedicated in 1976. It is one of 103 historical markers documented in Harrison County in the Texas Historical Commission Atlas, among 270 historic sites cataloged across the county.

The site sits at 32.5486, -94.3683 near Marshall. The nearest cataloged historic site is Hochwald House (historic place), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Hockwald, Isaac, Sam Houston's 1857 Campaign in Marshall, and Marshall Masonic Female Institute.

This record corresponds to Texas Historical Commission Atlas #5203010147. Use the map below for its exact position and turn-by-turn directions.