Nash Iron Works

In 1857 the Nash furnace was reorganized as J. S. Nash and Company, with Jefferson S. Nash, his son William D. Nash and David Browder, an outside iron expert. It sought a state land grant and got none, and in January 1858 it was incorporated as the Nash Iron, Steel, and Copper Manufacturing Company. In 1861 it tried to make cannons, cannonballs and rifles for the Confederate Army; the Handbook says only cannonballs appear to have been made. Reincorporated in 1863 as the Texas Iron Company, it was later sold to the Kelly iron company and moved to Kellyville.

What the plaque says

Nash Iron Works First iron furnace in Texas. Built by Jefferson S. Nash, who came here in 1846. He found much iron ore, wood for charcoal, and clay to make molds. From ridge back of the furnace, charcoal and ore were poured down the smokestack. Under the furnace grate, melted iron collected in a puddle, to be put into molds for shaping farm tools, cooking pots, smoothing irons, and-- in the Civil War-- cannon balls and possibly guns. Nash had difficulty securing machinery, workers, capital, and transportation. In the 1800s, at least 16 iron works operated in East Texas. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Daingerfield State Park — 14 mi
  A pine-and-hardwood park built in 1935-39 by a white and a Black Civilian Conservation Corps company, with a dammed lake, Bass Lodge and a 2.4-mile loop trail around the water.
• Jefferson Historical Museum — 16 mi
  A four-floor museum in Jefferson's 1888-90 federal post office and courthouse, with rooms for African-American history, Jewish heritage, the Caddo and Diamond Bessie, bought by the historical society in 1965 for $8,100.
• Excelsior House Hotel — 16 mi
  A brick-and-timber hotel at 211 West Austin that began as a river captain's boarding house in 1858 and was revived by a garden club in 1959, and still takes guests with rosewood furniture.
• Texas and Pacific Railway Depot and Museum — 24 mi
  The only surviving building of the Texas and Pacific shops at Marshall, a 1912 Mission Revival depot saved from demolition in the 1990s, still an Amtrak stop, with a railway museum and a Mikado locomotive.

More markers nearby

• Murry Institute — 5.6 mi
• Port Bolivar & Iron Ore Railroad — 6.2 mi
• Site of the Guarantee State Bank — 6.2 mi
• Simmons Hill Baptist Church — 7.4 mi