Responding to a Looming Need

In the late 19th century, growing demand for cotton clothes increased the need for cotton thread in textile mills from America to Europe. After the railroad linked the area to outside markets, Meriwether and partners quickly added a cotton gin to the grist mill. In 1884 they sold the mill to a group of investors that included Fritz Zedler, and four years later Fritz bought out his partners, beginning three generations of Zedlers in Luling's cotton industry. Farmers brought raw cotton to be ginned and baled, paying with cotton seed, cash, or cotton, and then sold their bales to merchants in town. Fritz sold the mill to his sons Herman and Charles in 1902 and retired to the house he built across the creek that same year. His oldest son, Berthold, opened his own mill in nearby Ottine. Charles's son Paul operated the mill until it closed in 1960, and his other son, Charles David, operated his own gin in Luling.

Luling, Texas · United States