Daingerfield was a Civil War center for manufacturing, supply, and travel and a place where several Confederate army units were enrolled. Local industries supporting the war effort included three tanyards, sidelines of the beef slaughtering trade that helped feed troops and civilians, producing leather for soldiers' boots and shoes and for cavalry saddles, bridles, and harness. On nearby rivers or ponds were three sawmills, one grist mill, and a distillery, and foundries in the area were predecessors of the 20th century Lone Star Steel Company. An old town before the Civil War, it was founded about 1830 at a spring where Capt. London Daingerfield was killed by Indians. The square was laid off in 1841 when this was designated the seat of justice for the judicial county of Paschal, and courts continued to be held there though Paschal was abolished in 1842. One noted 1842 trial involved a group that included Stephen Peters, one of the men who had platted the town square, accused of murdering Robert Potter, formerly secretary of the navy and one of the authors of the Constitution of the Republic of Texas, who had been killed in the Regulator-Moderator Feud, a political power struggle in East Texas.