Taylor Lime Kiln #1

Taylor's kilns were an industry in themselves. Developed in the mid-1870s just west of Austin, his two Patent Perpetual Lime Kilns turned out 50,000 barrels a year, and the site grew into the city's first industrial suburb, a company town with manufacturing shops, a grocery and quarters for workers. He used patent combination braces to hold the limestone walls together, and his four telephones made him the town's largest telephone subscriber. One of the kilns survives in Reed Park.

What the plaque says

Taylor Lime Kiln #1 This kiln was built in 1871 by Scottish immigrant Peter C. Taylor (b.1829). His patented kiln design permitted continuous firing, producing a superior lime that was used to make mortar for late 19th century Austin buildings and had a wide market elsewhere. Limestone from a nearby quarry, now known as Taylor Slough on Scenic Dr., was hauled along a wagon trail and then over a bridge to the top of the kiln. Operated by Taylor until the 1890s, the industrial complex based on this kiln and kiln No.2 (1 Mi, S) was a major factor in Austin's early economy. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mount Bonnell — 1.1 mi
  Austin's old lookout over the Colorado, named by an 1838 traveler, picnicked on by George and Libbie Custer, and reached by a 1939 flight of about 100 limestone steps.
• Harry Ransom Center — 2.3 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 2.6 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• Texas State Capitol — 2.8 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.

More markers nearby

• Lilia and Josephine Casis — 0.4 mi
• William Steele — 0.7 mi
• Major John B. Jones — 0.7 mi
• Camp Mabry — 0.8 mi