DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. John F. Torrey — born 1821, died 1893 — was the kind of man Texas seems to have been invented for.
The marker calls him a pioneer promoter of Texas industry, and friend, that title was earned the hard way. By 1850 he had himself a flour mill, a grist mill, a saw mill, and on top of all that a sash, door, and blind factory running right here in Comal County. That's not a business portfolio — that's a statement of intent.
Then in 1863 he added a cotton factory to the operation. And if that weren't enough, somewhere along the way John F. Torrey built the first woolen factory in all of Texas.
The first. In the whole state. Now here's where the story gets its teeth.
Nature, it turns out, had opinions about all this ambition. A tornado came through and tore into the plant. Then the floods took their turn.
Partial destruction, the marker says — which is a polite way of saying the man watched pieces of what he'd built get scattered and drowned. But the marker uses a word I want you to hold onto: indomitable. Indomitable spirit.
Because Torrey rebuilt. After the tornado, he rebuilt. After the floods, he rebuilt again.
He kept right on going — until, finally, all of it was swept away. All of it. The flour mill, the grist mill, the saw mill, the factory, every last bit of it, gone.
There's a particular kind of heartbreak in that phrase — until all was swept away — and the marker doesn't flinch from it. Neither should we. John F.
Torrey didn't quit. The river just wouldn't quit harder.
What the marker says
(1821- 1893) Pioneer promotor of Texas industry. He operated a flour, grist and saw mill, a sash, door and blind factory (1850), a cotton factory (1863) and the first woolen factory in Texas. With indomitable spirt he rebuilt the plant, after partail destruction by tornado and floods, until all was swept away.