Palestine Salt Works C. S. A.

Salt came from Anderson County ground long before the Confederacy wanted it. A 1940 county history calls salt the county's oldest and most persistent manufacturing industry. The saline was a flat, irregular depression about a mile long and half a mile wide where pioneers camped and boiled out a year's supply at a time, so the yearly task became a social gathering. James L. McMeans bought it around the time of the Civil War. About 1903 the Palestine Salt Works modernized the plant and greatly expanded its operations.

What the plaque says

Palestine Salt Works C. S. A. Located 6.5 miles southwest. During the Civil War this salt works was assigned to produce salt for the Confederacy at a fixed price of eight dollars for a hundred-pound sack. Private customers from East Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana often paid twenty dollars for a sack. Producing salt was slow, tedious work. Salt water was taken from wells spread over a distance of three-fourths of a mile. A pump operated by a slave was placed in each well. Gum logs, hollowed out and joined together formed a pipeline from the wells to large cast iron boiling kettles which were kept fired. Heated water was then transferred to smaller kettles for quick evaporation. (see other side) (Back Palestine Salt Works) (1963)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 3.7 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.

More markers nearby

• Governor Thomas Mitchell Campbell — steps away
• Timothy Stephen Smith — steps away
• Palestine Fire Department — steps away
• Anderson County — steps away