Community of Wrightsboro
Wrightsboro, Gonzales County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founded in 1851 by L. C. "Jack" Wright. Fellow settlers with a sense of humor gave town name because Wright's burro (donkey) roamed the area at will. A native of Alabama, Wright (1820-1905) was a noted marksman. He served in Confederate Army in Civil War (1861-65), then returned to stock raising here. Was also a county commissioner 10 years. At peak, Wrightsboro boasted many stores and a solid grain and cotton-based economy. Grew to be trade and social center. Local Masonic Lodge, Shuler No. 317, has operated from 1869 to 1915 and 1920 to the present.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Wrightsboro was founded in 1851 by L. C. "Jack" Wright, an Alabama-born marksman and stock raiser, and gained its name from neighbors amused by his free-roaming burro. Wright served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, then returned to ranching and spent a decade as a county commissioner. At its height the town boasted numerous stores and a solid grain- and cotton-based economy, becoming a trade and social center whose Masonic lodge has met, off and on, since 1869.
Why it matters
Wrightsboro is a small window into the rhythms of frontier South Texas — settlement, Confederate service, and the fraternal and agricultural institutions that knit rural communities together.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · L. C. "Jack" Wright
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Shot of the Texas Revolution
Gonzales, TX
A mile and a half from here, on October 2, 1835, Texan colonists under Col. John H. Moore fired a small cannon at Mexican troops — the opening shot of the Texas Revolution. The confrontation at Gonzales over that very cannon crystallized the colonists' defiance and launched the fight for Texas independence.
Site of the First Shot of the Texas Revolution
Gonzales County, TX
Near this spot on October 2, 1835, Texas colonists answered the Mexican government's demand to surrender their small cannon with a defiant "come and take it." The skirmish at Gonzales — the "first shot" of the Texas Revolution — sent Mexican troops retreating toward Bexar and set the colonies on the road to independence. This granite-and-bronze monument, designed by Waldine Tauch, was raised generations later to mark the ground.
Dikes Family Cemetery
Gonzales, TX
Miles G. Dikes emigrated from Georgia in 1829 to become an original member of Green DeWitt's colony, one of the earliest Anglo-American settlements in Mexican Texas. Around 1850 he established this family cemetery on his Gonzales County land, where the first known burial, his son Lovic, came in 1859. The graveyard holds about twenty marked graves and is still used by his descendants.
Community of Pilgrim
Pilgrim, TX
This community carries the name of Thomas J. Pilgrim, a Connecticut-born educator who arrived in Stephen F. Austin's colony in 1828 and opened a school at San Felipe the next year, along with what is remembered as Texas's first Sunday School. An 1838 land grant from the young Republic of Texas brought him to this area, and he settled in nearby Gonzales in 1840. By the 1870s the little trading post here had also gained a rougher reputation as a hideout of the notorious gunman John Wesley Hardin.