Site of Dulaney's Mill

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's the story of the site of Dulaney's Mill in Bell County. Now settle in, because this one covers a lot of ground. John Thornton Dulaney was born in 1825, and if you're the kind of person who can't sit still, well, you'd have understood him just fine.

In 1849, he packed up and left his native Virginia. Not for the next county over. For California.

Gold rush country. The man had ambition to burn. He made it back, though, and somewhere along the way he married Mary Jane Gates, born in 1836, a woman whose family had deep Texas roots.

Her parents had settled in Texas all the way back in 1821. So when Dulaney finally planted his own flag in Bell County, he was marrying into Texas history. After the Civil War, he returned to this site, and in 1868 he built his home right here.

Then he got to work. And I mean to work. What grew up around that home was something else entirely.

A grist mill. A cotton gin. A general store.

A blacksmith shop. A full farm complex that became the kind of place a whole neighborhood depended on. He didn't stop there.

He built a church for the community. He built a school. And every day, John Thornton Dulaney and his millhands sat down to feed thirty-five people.

Thirty-five. Daily. Now here's the detail that'll stick with you.

Dulaney was an inventor. When a mill part broke or ran short, he didn't send off for one. He made it.

Whatever the machinery needed, he figured it out and built it himself. He had five children, a wife born in 1836 who would live all the way to 1925, and a business that hummed along until about 1912. Dulaney himself, born in 1825, didn't leave this world until 1916.

The mill went quiet a few years before him, but the man who built it from nothing, who crossed a continent for gold and came home to build a community instead, he lasted. That's the site of Dulaney's Mill.

What the marker says

Farm complex noted for grist mill, cotton gin, general store, blacksmith shop. Owned by John Thornton Dulaney (1825-1916), who in 1849 left his native Virginia, going to California gold rush. He married Mary Jane Gates (1836-1925), whose parents settled in Texas in 1821. Dulaney's home at this site was built in 1868, after his return from Civil War. Nearby were church and school built by Dulaney for neighborhood. He had five children. With millhands, he often fed 35 people daily. Dulaney, an inventor, made mill parts as needed. His business continued until about 1912. (1970)