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The Iron Ores of East Texas all belong to the class of Brown Hematite (Limonite). Though they have been known ever since this region was originally settled by Americans, over fifty years ago, and have been and are still worked on a small scale, it has only been in the last few years that they have begun to attract the serious attention of iron manufacturers. Until then the railroad facilities were too few, and the markets too far away, to allow of the ores being utilized. But now railroads are much more numerous, and every year new lines are being pushed into hitherto inaccessible regions. Local markets in many of the towns of the State, and throughout the Southwest generally, are springing up, and the demand for pig iron is daily increasing. The population of the country is growing rapidly, and labor is becoming much more plentiful, and consequently cheaper, than ten years ago. The result of this is that iron manufacturers are now looking to Texas as a source of supply of ore for this region. These ores were worked on a small scale before, during, and shortly after the Civil War, at several small furnaces is East Texas. Most of them are now in ruins, or are rapidly approaching that condition. Among them were the Nash and Sulphur Forks furnaces, in Cass County; the well known Loo Ellen (or Kelly) furnace, in Marion County; and the Filleo and Young furnaces, in Cherokee County. Shumard, in 1859, speaks of the Nash furnace as having been erected "several years since," and it was probably the first furnace ever in blast in the State of Texas. At present the only furnace working in the State is one of twenty-five tons capacity at the State Penitentiary, near Rusk. This produces an excellent grade of pig iron, which is largely used at the car wheel works in Marshall, Texas. Lately, however, two companies have bought up extensive tracts of iron lands, with the object of manufacturing pig iron. One of these, the Cherokee Land and Iron Company, has located furnaces at the town of New Birmingham, one and a half miles southeast of Rusk, Cherokee County. The other, the Lone Star Iron Company, is building furnaces at Jefferson, in Marion County.

The mode of occurrence and the associations of the iron ores differ considerably in the different districts, and therefore, for the sake of convenience "

First Report of Progress of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas, B. F. Shumard, 1859.