Near Site of Dance Gun Shop

The Dance revolvers were a small run: fewer than 400 six-shooters in .44 and .36, on the Colt pattern. In April 1862 George Dance asked Governor Lubbock for five thousand dollars to start, hoping to turn out about fifty a week, but production lagged, and by October they had shipped only a dozen to the San Antonio arsenal. In late 1863 the brothers sold the business to the Confederacy, which moved the works inland near Anderson in Grimes County fearing coastal invasion. After the war the family came back to East Columbia and returned to gristmills and cotton gins.

What the plaque says

Near Site of Dance Gun Shop Started on Brazos River in 1850 by brothers J. H., George, and David Dance. Shop produced guns which helped arm the Confederacy during Civil War, 1862-65. The firearms were noted for precision. Shop also made machinery for grist mills, cotton gins, sugar refineries, and sawmills. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 2.1 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.
• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 9.9 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Brazos Bend State Park — 17 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 20 mi
  Coastal prairie, salt marsh and bays between Freeport and Christmas Bay, where an auto tour along Big Slough passes wintering geese, ducks and wading birds in the tens of thousands.

More markers nearby

• Bell's Landing — steps away
• Site of Carry Nation's Hotel — steps away
• Near Site of the First Capitol of the Republic of Texas — 1.6 mi
• Columbia Rosenwald School — 1.7 mi