Site of 1920's Factory of the Temple Monoplane

Williams was flying long before the Texas Aero Corporation. According to Wikipedia, he built and flew his own monoplane, the Prairie Queen, in 1910, and by 1911 had helped form the Temple Aero Club, which offered lessons, passenger flights and aerial advertising. In October 1927 the club's charter became the corporation, and about a dozen aircraft were built between 1928 and 1930. In 1929 the firm acquired a four-acre site at Love Field in Dallas for a larger factory. One Texas-Temple Sportsman survives, at the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas.

What the plaque says

Site of 1920's Factory of the Temple Monoplane Pioneer commercial aircraft developed by engineering genius George W. Williams, who with Roy Sanderford, George Carroll, and his brother E.K. Williams, formed Texas Aero Corporation in 1927. The firm obtained (June 23, 1928) Approved Type Certificate No. 45 of the U.S. Department of Commerce, to make and sell the Temple Monoplane. Primarily designed for airmail, this craft was equipped for night flight - an innovation in that era. Despite successes, plant closed after 1929 Wall Street crash and death on Aug. 15, 1930, of George Williams in a student training disaster. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 2.6 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Mother Neff State Park — 17 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 30 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.

More markers nearby

• Anna Laura Cole — 1.6 mi
• Former Site of Scott & White School of Nursing — 1.7 mi
• Scott & White Hospital — 1.7 mi
• Arthur Carroll Scott, Sr., M.D. — 1.7 mi