Bastrop County
Bastrop, Bastrop County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A part of Austin's grant in 1821; created the municipality of Mina, 1834; became the County of Mina in the Republic of Texas, 1836. Name changed to "Bastrop," December 18, 1837, in honor of Felipe Enrique Neri, Baron de Bastrop, 1770-1829, land commissioner of Austin's Colony. Member of the Congress of Coahuila and Texas. Bastrop, the County Seat
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This land was part of Stephen F. Austin's original 1821 colonial grant, becoming the municipality of Mina in 1834 and then a county of the Republic of Texas in 1836. In December 1837 it was renamed Bastrop to honor Felipe Enrique Neri, the Baron de Bastrop, land commissioner for Austin's Colony and a member of the Coahuila-and-Texas congress. The town of Bastrop serves as the county seat.
Why it matters
It traces the political birth of Anglo-American Texas — from Mexican colonial grant to Republic-era county — and honors a figure whose maneuvering helped make Austin's colonization of Texas possible.
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Related people
- · Felipe Enrique Neri, Baron de Bastrop
- · Stephen F. Austin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Early History of the City of Bastrop
Bastrop, TX
Long home to the Tonkawa and Comanche, this stretch of the Colorado River became strategic when Spanish explorers blazed part of El Camino Real, the King's Highway, across it in the years after 1691. A fort and community rose here in 1805 to guard the road, and by 1825 the site was one of the first settlements in Stephen F. Austin's colony, first called Mina and then renamed Bastrop in 1837 for the influential land agent Baron de Bastrop. Its founding families went on to serve in the Texas Revolution and the Mexican War, and the town became county seat and home to a noted military academy.
The Gotier Trace
Bastrop, TX
Blazed in the 1820s, the Gotier Trace linked San Felipe, capital of Stephen F. Austin's colony, with Bastrop, threading across the counties of early Anglo Texas. It was no engineered highway but a marked path—dusty in drought, boggy in rain—named for settler James Gotier, who with several kin was killed in a raid near the route in 1837. From such rough traces the pattern of Texas travel was first drawn.
Felipe Enrique Neri Baron de Bastrop
Bastrop, TX
Felipe Enrique Neri, the self-styled Baron de Bastrop, was one of the pivotal figures who opened Texas to Anglo-American settlement. As an empresario on the Red River, land commissioner for Stephen F. Austin's colony, and a member of the Congress of Coahuila and Texas, he helped make Austin's colonization scheme a reality in the 1820s. In gratitude, both the county and its seat bear his name.
John Holland Jenkins
Bastrop, TX
This marker honors John Holland Jenkins, who as a young soldier fought in the San Jacinto campaign of the Texas War for Independence. The State of Texas erected the memorial in 1962 to commemorate his service. Jenkins later became known for his written recollections of frontier Texas life.