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The Howard Oil Company was one of the earliest cottonseed oil companies in Houston, built in 1880 following the construction of the adjacent junction of the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway and the Houston & Texas Central Railway. In 1882, a station was built at the intersection of the new railroads and named Chaney Junction, honoring Thomas R. Chaney, Secretary and General Manager of the Howard Oil Company. The community that sprang up around Chaney Junction was called Chaneyville. Largely populated by freed slaves and their descendants who labored for both the cottonseed mills and the railroad facilities that stood within walking distance of their homes, Chaneyville became one of the centers for Houston’s African American population. An enormous fire destroyed much of the company complex in 1886. By summer 1887, the mill was well on its way to being rebuilt. Within five years of the fire, the plant, by then owned by the National Cotton Oil Company, was the largest cotton oil mill in Texas. In 1892, it produced 12,000 tons of cottonseed meal, 2,000 bales of lint and over 1.25 million gallons of cottonseed oil that was shipped around the globe for use in products from margarine to soap. Another fire destroyed the entire complex on January 6, 1912. The plant owner by that date was the Industrial Cotton Oil Company, who had acquired National Cotton Oil’s operations throughout Texas a decade earlier. Industrial rebuilt the cottonseed plant yet again, and it remained in operation until the early 1920s when the property gave way to other uses. The giant seed house is the only part of the cotton oil mill facility that remains. |
