Historical Marker
Royston Factor Mill
Murfreesboro, Pike County · Arkansas
Erected 2013
Merrell arrived with his nephew William Smith in January 1856, bought a site on the Little Missouri River in Pike County and named it Royston for General Grandison D. Royston. He completed a dam there after August 1856, and it still stands. The legislature chartered his Arkansas Manufacturing Company in January 1857. In February 1863 Merrell sold the mill. Edmund Kirby Smith later sent him to England to buy machinery for a Texas factory, and the war ended while he was abroad.
Where it stands
34.06205, -93.68997 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Crater of Diamonds State Park — 2.3 miA volcanic crater where anyone can dig for diamonds and keep what they find.
- Historic Washington State Park — 20 miA Southwest Trail town that was Arkansas's Confederate capital from 1863 to 1865, then lost the railroad and kept its buildings, with a blacksmith shop and the 1836 courthouse.
More markers nearby
- Henry Merrell — steps away
- Pike County Diamond Mines — steps away
- Pike County Court House — steps away
- Howard County in the Civil War — 15 mi