Site of Marion Packing Co.

In the packeries' first years the beef itself was nearly worthless. W. S. Hall's plant at Fulton, the first in the county, slaughtered 400,000 cattle in eight years, chiefly for hides and tallow; much of the meat was fed raw to hogs or thrown into the bay, and one dump of carcasses near a packery covered nearly five acres. In 1871 Daniel L. Holden installed the first ice machine in a packing house, letting plants save most of the meat. Even in 1880 a single Rockport-Fulton factory handled 93 percent of the $500,000 in beef slaughtered by Texas factories.

What the plaque says

Site of Marion Packing Co. The ruins of this rendering vat mark the location of the Marion Packing Co. (spelled "Meriam" in some records), one of the dozen or more meat packing plants built in the Rockport-Fulton area in the 1860s and 1870s to process the huge herds of range cattle that roamed Texas after the Civil War. Here beef was dried, salted, or pickled before shipping. The by-products such as tallow, hides, horns, and bones were sent to eastern factories. Like most of the coastal plants, Marion Packing Co. flourished until about 1880, when shipping cattle to northern markets proved more profitable. (1976)

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Fulton — 0.3 mi
• Home of George W. Fulton — 0.5 mi
• Connie Hagar — 2.0 mi
• Aransas County — 2.5 mi