Kimble County's First Sawmill

The Denmans' water-driven mill followed an old Texas pattern. The first sawmills, before the Revolution, were sash mills, a single blade in a frame powered by water, animals or later steam, turning out 500 to 1,200 board feet a day one board at a time. John Richardson Harris planned perhaps the first steam sawmill in 1829; his brothers and Robert Wilson finished it, and Santa Anna's troops destroyed it in 1836. By 1860 Texas had some 200 sawmills with about 1,200 workers, and after the Civil War circular saws could cut more than 25,000 board feet a day.

What the plaque says

Kimble County's First Sawmill Started 1877 on South Llano River by pioneers Claud, Lon and Sel Denman. Waterpower created by mill dam built by Claud, a stonemason. House at 210 E. Main is of their rawhide lumber, cut from local wood-- used green before it warped and got too tough for nailing. RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARK, 1966.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kimble County Historical Museum — 1.2 mi
  A free county museum in Junction, the town at the meeting of the North and South Llano, with the papers, photographs and tools of a ranching county.
• Eckert James River Bat Cave Preserve — 26 mi
  A limestone cave on the James River where about four million Mexican free-tailed bats raise their young each summer, kept open to visitors by a family's gift.
• Fort McKavett State Historic Site — 31 mi
  The post Sherman called the prettiest in Texas, home to soldiers of all four Buffalo Soldier regiments and then to a town that lived in its buildings until 1973.

More markers nearby

• South Llano Crossing — steps away
• Schreiner Park — steps away
• Burt M. Fleming American Legion Post No. 237 — steps away
• City of Junction — 0.2 mi