German settlers Friedrich Ernst and Charles Fordtran founded Industry, Texas in 1831. The settlement was part of the Stephen F. Austin Colonial Land Grant and was the first permanent German settlement in Texas. Although cigar-making dominated the town’s early industry, by the 1850s cotton became the area’s major crop. Ernst Knolle, who emigrated to Industry from Germany in 1844, prospered as a cotton planter and had a gin built on this location in 1857. Local German craftsmen, Andreas Buenger and Theodore Daum, helped construct the original wood frame gin with a shingle roof. It was one of the area’s first of twelve gins built between 1857 and 1890.
In the 1860s, Knolle sold the gin to Daum after suffering from financial difficulties. It was during this period that the gin was converted from mule powered to steam powered energy. Three generations of the Schramm family owned and operated the gin from 1876 to 1963. The Schramms made significant upgrades to the gin including converting it to diesel power, installing a ginning system from the Texas-based firm Murray Company, and constructing a galvanized iron structure next to the original wooden gin in 1929. The gin was sold to local businessman, Milton Lindemann in 1963 who was aided in its operation by Charles Fordtran, a descendant of the original settler Charles Fordtran. The gin ran for ten years until Fordtran’s health began to fail. The last bale of cotton in Austin County was ginned here in 1973. In 1976, Milton Huebner bought the property and the original 1857 gin was razed for safety concerns. The Huebners donated the historic site to the city of Industry in 1996.
Marker is Property of the State of Texas (2012)