DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and friend, this one's worth the telling. Now picture Confederate Texas, deep in the middle of the Civil War. You need salt.
Not just a little — you need it to cure meat, season food, cure hides for leather, feed your work horses, your army draft mules, your cavalry horses. Salt is the difference between an army that eats and an army that doesn't. And Texas was running short.
So the Texas Legislature did what legislatures do when the situation is dire enough — they appropriated funds. Sent a civil engineer out to explore along the Brazos River. And not just anywhere along the Brazos.
We're talking 125 miles beyond Fort Belknap and the outer settlements. One hundred and twenty-five miles beyond the last edge of anything you'd call civilization. Out on an Indian-infested frontier where the risks weren't hypothetical, they were Tuesday.
Now here's where the story gets interesting. That civil engineer went looking and he found something. Double Mountain spring water — tested out at ninety-eight percent salt.
Ninety-eight. A nearby lake came in at forty-five percent. The frontier, it turned out, was sitting on a fortune in brine.
What rose up out there became the Double Mountain Salt Works on the Brazos River. The northernmost business in all of Confederate Texas. Established at great risk, the marker is careful to tell you, at great risk — because the frontier had a way of reminding you exactly how far from help you truly were.
The reduction of that brine fell under the control of the Texas Military Board. This wasn't a private venture operating on its own nerve. Troops guarded the work.
The Confederacy understood what it had found and it wasn't about to let it go unprotected. And so out there, 125 miles past the last settlement, past the last fort, on a frontier that was anything but tame, men boiled brine and soldiers kept watch — because somewhere down the line, an army was waiting on the salt.
What the marker says
On Indian-infested frontier 125 miles beyond Fort Belknap and outer settlements. Northernmost business in Confederate Texas. Established at great risk, to obtain salt, scarce during Civil War and vitally needed to cure meat, season food, cure hides for leather, feed work horses, army draft mules and cavalry horses. Texas Legislature appropriated funds for the explorations on the Brazos by a civil engineer. Double Mountain spring water proved to be 98% salt, a nearby lake 45%. Reduction of brine was under control of Texas Military Board. Troops guarded the work. (1965)