Old Calvert Foundry and Manufacturing Company

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. The Old Calvert Foundry and Manufacturing Company. Robertson County, Texas.

Now settle in, because this one starts the way the best Texas stories do, with somebody deciding to build something serious in a place that needed it. Around 1870, this foundry rose up as one of Calvert's very first industries. And right away you can tell the people behind it were not thinking small.

The building itself went up in brick, and not just any brick. County-made brick. Brick that came from the ground right there in Robertson County.

But then, if you look up at the facade, you see iron. And that iron came all the way from St. Louis.

So you've got this building that is local to its bones and cosmopolitan on its face. That tension right there tells you something about what Calvert was reaching for. Now here is the part that makes you stop and picture it.

The iron ore they worked inside that foundry came from local deposits, and also from Cherokee County, a hundred miles to the northeast. A hundred miles. And it was not coming by rail or river.

It was coming by horse-drawn wagon. Somebody made that haul, over and over, so the furnaces inside could turn raw ore into farm tools and other sturdy articles. Sturdy.

That word is right there on the marker, and I think they earned it. The foundry attracted serious people too. Among its incorporators was J.

Adoue, a member of a French family the marker describes as noted in state business. And the marker tells us prominent Texans have owned this foundry, plural, over the years. This was not a flash-in-the-pan operation.

It was a place where iron came in from a hundred miles away by wagon and left as something a farmer could put to work. That is a foundry. That is Calvert.

What the marker says

Founded about 1870 as one of Calvert's first industries. The building is of county-made brick; iron facade came from St. Louis. Iron ore from local deposits and from Cherokee County (100 mi. NE) was hauled here by horse-drawn wagons to be made into farm tools and other sturdy articles. Prominent Texans have owned this foundry. J. Adoue, member of a French family noted in state business, was an incorporator. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1969