Blue Bell Creameries

The creamery began in a converted cotton gin that the dairy farmers took over after it was abandoned, and the surviving plant still shows it. It incorporates parts of the American Cotton Gin Company's buildings and added a one-story main building in the Art Moderne style. The National Register of Historic Places listed it in 1990 as an agricultural processing facility. Refrigerated trucks replaced horse-drawn wagons in 1936. The company dropped butter in 1958, introduced Homemade Vanilla in 1969, and adopted its logo of a girl leading a cow in 1977.

What the plaque says

Blue Bell Creameries In August 1907, the Brenham Creamery Company formed to purchase excess dairy products from farmers and produce butter local sales. In 1911, the creamery began making ice cream, producing a maximum of two gallons each day. E.F. Kruse, who managed the creamery from 1919 to 1951, changed the company's name to Blue Bell Creameries in 1930. During the company's early years, management set the tone for careful business practices and respect for tradition. Under the Kruse family's leadership, business expanded into markets outside of Brenham. Blue Bell has become one of the nation's most successful ice cream brands with a focus on its "country" origins, quality ingredients and friendly service. (2007)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 11 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 17 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 17 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.
• Round Top and Festival Hill — 20 mi
  A German village on the old La Bahía Road, named for a house tower, with an 1867 stone church, a Fourth of July kept since 1851 and a concert hall a pianist built without blueprints.

More markers nearby

• William H. Watson — 0.8 mi
• Brenham Fire Department — 0.8 mi
• Evangelical Lutheran Colleges of Texas — 0.9 mi
• Brenham Normal and Industrial College — 1.0 mi