Graham Salt Works

The salt came from Salt Creek, which the Handbook of Texas follows from the Olney oilfield south through Young County, past the western edge of Graham, to the Brazos three miles below town. It now fills Lake Graham as well. The Handbook says salt and coal were mined only sporadically in the county from the early 1850s. After the Graham brothers bought the works in 1872, Gustavus Graham surveyed the townsite, a post office opened in 1873, and an election in 1874 made Graham the county seat over Belknap.

What the plaque says

Graham Salt Works Saline residue found along the banks of Salt Creek attracted settlers to this area in the 1850s. The first person to undertake commercial production of salt here was Martin V. Bowers, who arrived in the area prior to the Civil War. A farmer and local politician, he later sold his business to A. B. Gant and moved to Parker County. Gant, a Confederate veteran, operated the salt works until 1871, when he was elected to the Texas Legislature. He sold the operation to Gustavus A. (1836-1906) and Edwin S. (1831-1899) Graham, brothers who had come to Texas with the Texas Emigration and Land Company. The Grahams improved the salt works by adding new equipment in 1872. With a capacity of producing 2,500 pounds of salt per day, the Graham salt works was in operation for only two years. The salt, sold to merchants in nearby towns, cost more to transport than to produce, and the operation was discontinued. Although short in duration, the Graham Salt Works played a vital role in local development. The Graham brothers donated land for a town, named for their family, as well as for Oak Grove Cemetery, where both brothers were later buried. (1987)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 0.6 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.
• Fort Belknap — 8.7 mi
  The 1851 northern anchor of the first Texas frontier forts, on the Brazos below Newcastle, a Butterfield stop and the post beside the Brazos Reservation until its people were driven out in 1859.
• Fort Richardson State Park and Historic Site — 27 mi
  The northernmost post of the Texas frontier line, outside Jacksboro, where a stone hospital and six other buildings stand from 1867 and a later Guard unit became the Lost Battalion.

More markers nearby

• Addie M. Graham — steps away
• Cattle Raisers Association Oak — 0.5 mi
• An 1890 Bank Building — 0.5 mi
• Site of Third County Courthouse — 0.6 mi