96 THE IRON ORB DISTRICT OF EAST TEXAS. 



CHAPTER II. 



MARION COUNTY. 



BY WM. KENNEDY. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Marion County may be justly looked upon as the pioneer iron county of 

 Texas. Although not the first to establish iron furnaces or bloomaries, she 

 was the first to put them into operation in such a manner and at such a time 

 as to insure their continuance. Some time between the years 1850 and 1859 

 Mr. Nash erected a furnace on the Walter H. Gilbert headright and began 

 the work of smelting ore from the immediate vicinity of his furnace. This 

 furnace was, after continuing in operation for a number of years, allowed to 

 fall into disuse, and no more furnace work was done in that part of the State 

 for some time. This furnace was in operation when visited by Mr. Shumard 

 in 1859. 



In 1859 Mr. Reece Hughes began the erection of a furnace in Cass County, 

 but it was not operated until 1863; and in 1864 the Sulphur Forks furnace 

 was erected in the northern part of the same county, then known as Davis 

 County. These furnaces, however, were but very short lived, neither of them 

 being in operation for more than a few months. 



In 1869 Mr. G-. A. Kelley established a small furnace at Kelleyville for the 

 manufacture of the ordinary grades of soft foundry pig iron, and also for the 

 manufacture of such iron hollow ware as the trade of the country demanded. 

 In 1870 this furnace began operations and continued under Mr. Kelly's charge 

 until the year 1882, when it was purchased by a Mr. Ware, an Alabama iron 

 man. Mr. Ware operated the works until 1883, when the furnace plant and 

 pig iron on hand were sold to the Marshall Car Wheel Foundry Company, 

 which continued operations until 1886. In that year the furnace required 

 extensive repairs and remodeling. This the Car Wheel Company considered 

 would require rather more expense than they cared to incur, and preferred to 

 let the furnace go out of blast. Since then the works at Kelleyville, or "Loo 

 Ellen," as the furnace was afterwards called, have been idle. 



In the tenth census of the United States (1880) Marion County was the 

 only county in Texas represented among the iron producing regions of the 

 United States, and then only by the old Kelleyville furnace. On page 74, 

 Vol. 15, we find Texas ranking nineteenth in the list of iron producing States 

 of the Union, with a production of 3600 tons of ore having a value of $8100, 

 or a spot value of $2.25 per ton. From the same tables we find that the ore 



