Mrs. Carlisle's TX History



Industry Develops Slowly in Texas

Modern manufacturing came slowly to Texas for a number of reasons. First, Texas was a frontier state, far from the large cities and markets of the rest of the United States. Second, transportation was slow and expensive. Third, Texas differed from industrial centers in the North because it lacked such valuable raw materials as plentiful iron ore and high-quality coal. Until the twentieth century, industries usually grew only near the sources of raw materials.

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Railroads Lead to Industry

The building of railroads in Texas began before the Civil War. After the war, railroads quickly spread throughout Texas, solving many of its transportation problems. Railroads allowed raw materials in Texas to be sent to markets in the northern United States and to ports where they could be shipped to Europe. Fast, inexpensive, and reliable transportation helped sellers get their products to buyers. The railroads were a major factor in the industrialization of Texas.

The invention of the refrigerated railroad car allowed Texas beef to be shipped far away without spoiling. This advance greatly expanded the market. Furthermore, wood used for railroad crossties, coach cars, depot buildings, and engine fuel led to growth in the lumber industry. When locomotives started using less wood fuel and more coal in the late 1800s, the coal industry experienced dramatic growth in Texas.

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Cotton Processing Industries Arise

After the railroad arrived, Texas cotton farming jumped into the business market. The move to a cotton economy opened the door for many new Texas industries. Clothing manufacturing grew dramatically. In time, large textile mills were built in Houston as well as in Waco and New Braunfels.

In addition, inventions such as the cotton-compress machine reduced the size of cotton bales by about half, which lowered the cost of

shipping. As a result, cotton producers could afford to ship their product

farther away. Cotton *by-products, such as cottonseed oil, also led to industrial growth. By 1900 cottonseed oil manufacturing had become the second largest Texas industry after lumber.

When cotton is ginned, the seeds are removed from the lint but not thrown away. The cottonseeds are then broken down into four parts: the linters, hulls, oil, and meal. Cottonseed oil is used to make shortening, mayonnaise, salad oil, cooking oil, margarine, cosmetics, and other products. Because Texas produces so much cottonseed oil, it emerged as an early leader in the manufacture of these household items.

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Other Industries Grow

Over time, Texas farm families began buying more items that they had once produced for themselves. One such product was bread. The demand for store-bought bread helped flour and grist milling become two of the state’s top-ranking industries.

In addition to the demand for flour, the demand for beef increased. This led to further growth of the Texas cattle industry and, in turn, of the meatpacking industry. Gulf Coast towns such as Victoria, Rockport, and Fulton were especially affected. Cattle drives helped the meatpacking industry further expand to the north and west. Fort Worth made the best of its location near major railroads and large cattle ranches in North Central Texas. It quickly became Texas’s number one meatpacking center.

At the end of the Civil War, before there were refrigerated cattle cars, Texas cattle ranchers realized that the by-products of the cattle industry were even more profitable than beef. These by-products included cowhides, bones, and tallow (melted animal fat). Soon cattle owners built processing factories near ranches on the Gulf Coast. These factories processed thousands of animals each month until the thinning of the herds brought the industry dangerously close to ruin.

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Texas Market Centers Develop

The development of modern transportation and industry gave rise

to several large market centers. In 1870 only two Texas cities— Galveston and San Antonio—had populations of more than 10,000 people. But by 1900, 11 cities could make that claim. Except for Galveston, the largest cities were located mainly in the agricultural prairies of Central and South Texas. San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Galveston, and Fort Worth became the state’s largest cities by 1900.

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INSTRUCTIONS FOR NOTES:

Using the information above and your knowledge of history, put the following 4 facts in the correct order on the timeline in your notes.

• People move from rural areas to urban ones

• Modern transportation (railroads) increased

• Job opportunities increased

• Industry grew several large markets

Lumber, Texas’s First Great Industry

(page 1 of 2)

Before towns, roads, and industries came to eastern Texas, the area was a huge forest. The Big Thicket National Preserve, created in 1974 to protect more than 84,000 acres of forest, is only a small part of the area that was once forested. Settlers moved into the region in the early 1800s and began cutting down trees to build houses and fences and to grow crops. Because of the need for wood and the large supply of timber, sawmills soon sprang up around Texas forests.

The early mills consisted of a single saw blade held in a frame and

were powered by water or animals. Soon people demanded more lumber and wood products such as barrels and turpentine, an oil used as a thinner. The number of sawmills increased. Producers turned to steam powered machinery and circular saws, which allowed them to process wood much more quickly and cheaply.

After the Civil War, the railroad companies revolutionized the lumber industry. They needed great quantities of lumber to use for railroad ties, fuel, and other purposes. The railroads also connected the forests with the growing U.S. lumber markets. By the late 1800s lumber had become Texas’s leading industry. The cities of Orange and Beaumont became important sawmill centers. The mills in Orange alone cut 700,000 feet of lumber each day!

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Mill on the San Antonio River with advertisements on its side

Lumber, Texas’s First Great Industry

(page 2 of 2)

John Henry Kirby, known as the Prince of the Pines, started the Kirby Lumber Company in 1901. Before long, he had helped make lumber one of the leading industries in Texas. At one time, the Kirby Lumber Company controlled more than

300,000 acres of East Texas pine lands and operated 14 major sawmills.

Some lumber companies became so large that they established entire communities known as company towns. There, employees would live, work, shop, worship, and play together. The promise of a job and a social environment was quite tempting to many Texans who faced the isolation of farm life. Unfortunately, life in a company town came at a price. The lumber companies controlled almost every aspect of their employees’ lives. The companies often paid low wages in scrip, which was worthless outside the company town.

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Early industries had many bad effects on the environment. Many industries caused air pollution and water pollution. The lumber industry destroyed forests. The coal industry damaged the land with strip-mining. Today, the state and federal governments force industries to reduce their effects on the environment, and many industries have actually become leaders in preserving the environment. Technology has provided tools to helped reduce industry's damage to the environment. These tools include devices to reduce air pollution, treat wastewater, and reduce lead. They also include other environmentally sound technologies.

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Early logging efforts in Texas wiped out many square miles of forests. Today, lumber companies are more careful to replace the trees they cut down and not to over-cut.

Photo courtesy John Deere

Coal Production in Texas

Unlike the largely industrial states of Pennsylvania and Ohio,Texas lacked great quantities of iron ore and high-grade coal. Nature did, however, provide Texas with valuable *fossil fuels such as oil and low-grade coal, which formed the basis for its mineral industry.

Because Texas coal was of poor quality, it had little market value until the 1870s. Then railroad companies began switching from burning wood fuel to using coal in their steam-powered locomotives. Besides being cheap and plentiful, coal allowed the trains to make fewer stops for refueling. Even the low-quality Texas coal worked well in the steam engines. When trains began using coal, the demand for the mineral surged. In the 1890s Texas railroads moved about 2 million tons of coal a year. The town of Thurber, west of Fort Worth, became the major coal town in Texas.

Coal production left a permanent mark on the Texas landscape.

When companies discovered coal near the surface of the earth, they often used a technique known as *strip mining to extract it. In strip mining, the layers of earth and rock over the coal are stripped away, revealing the rich veins of minerals. Today mining companies must replace the layers of dirt and rock. But in the early mining days, there was no such requirement. As a result, parts of Texas bear giant rocky scars where companies once removed earth to mine coal.

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In about 1882 the Cannel Coal Company began operating coal mines along the Rio Grande in Webb County. The Rio Grande and Eagle Pass Railway was built to transport the coal.

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*by-product: something produced in addition to the main product

*scrip: money issued by a company that could be spent only at the company store

fossil fuel a nonrenewable source of energy underground

strip mining a method of mining that strips away layers of earth and rock

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