Site of a Munition Factory

Some of the guns the plaque lists came from a Brazoria County family shop. James Henry Dance and his brothers made gristmills and cotton gins at East Columbia before turning, in 1862, to six-shot Colt-pattern revolvers for the Confederacy. With Union troops on Matagorda Island, the government wanted their skills moved inland, and by early 1864 the Dances were headed for a powder mill and pistol factory it had built three miles north of Anderson. One of the last known shipments, 25 revolvers, left Anderson for Houston on April 18, 1865. The brothers made fewer than 400 in all.

What the plaque says

Site of a Munition Factory Site of a munition factory of the Southern Confederacy. Established in 1861. In operation until 1865. Cannon, cannon balls, guns, pistols, swords, sabers, bayonets and gun powder were manufactured. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site — 2.5 mi
  A cedar-log dogtrot cabin of 1834 on the road through Anderson that grew into a seventeen-room inn and post office for travelers of the Republic, kept by one family until 1976.
• Navasota — 10 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 16 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 16 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.

More markers nearby

• Dr. Benjamin Briggs Goodrich — 1.9 mi
• Grimes County, C.S.A. — 2.1 mi
• Grimes County — 2.1 mi
• In Memory of Colonel Benjamin Fort Smith and All Other Pioneers — 2.1 mi