Early Roads to San Felipe
San Felipe, Austin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
During the mid-1820s, when Stephen F. Austin was founding this town, the only roads in the area were wagon ruts of beaten trails marked by notched trees. Within a decade, however, the village of San Felipe, one of the first Anglo settlements in Texas, had become a hub from which 8 or more roads projected. Many of these were small, intra-colony routes, but the main trails extended to major towns or joined "highways", such as the San Antonio Road (El Camino Real). A main route which passed through San Felipe was the Atascosita Road, connecting Goliad with the United States. It took its name from Atascosa (Spanish for "boggy") Spring near Liberty, which once was its main terminus. The Gotier Trace, another travel artery, was laid out about 1830 by pioneer James Gotier. It joined the northern and southern parts of Austin's colony and was used for decades. The San Felipe Road proper, which ran to Harrisburg, transported goods inland from the Gulf Coast. Even the main thoroughfares, however, were dusty trails in the summer and impassable quagmires in the winter, often flooded by knee-deep water. Not until well into the 20th century did Texas begin to develp her present, outstanding highway system. (1969)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Stephen F. Austin was planting his colony in the mid-1820s, travel meant following wagon ruts and notched trees through the Texas wilderness. Within a decade San Felipe had become a crossroads from which eight or more roads radiated, tying into great arteries like the San Antonio Road and the Atascosita Road to the United States. Yet even the main routes were dust in summer and impassable bog in winter — a reminder of how hard-won overland travel was before the modern highway era.
Why it matters
These primitive traces were the arteries of Anglo-American settlement in Texas, knitting an isolated frontier colony into the wider commerce of the continent.
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Related people
- · Stephen F. Austin
- · James Gotier
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sealy Cemetery
Sealy, TX
In 1879 railroad agent George Sealy bought nearly 12,000 acres from the old township of San Felipe de Austin to establish a depot, and the town of Sealy quickly grew up around it. The cemetery recorded its first burial—an infant, Annie Fowlkes—in 1883, and families bought plots from the railroad until the company donated the land to trustees in 1887. A ladies' society organized in 1904 rallied community support, even launching a Christmas bazaar that became a beloved local tradition.
James Tarrant Pattison Homesite
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At the crossing of the Atascosito Road and the San Felipe Trail, James Tarrant Pattison and his wife Sarah settled a Republic of Texas land grant that grew into a 5,000-acre plantation with its own grist mill, sawmill, and cotton gin. The homesite doubled as a stagecoach stop, and the Pattisons founded the community's first church and school. The town that grew up here took the founder's name, and his heirs still live on the land.
Kellner Townsite
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Platted in 1893 by John G. Kellner, who donated the right-of-way and station site for the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad, Kellner was the first town in this area. Its rich Brazos River watershed lands produced rice, cattle, peanuts, pecans, and later natural gas. The town was eventually renamed Brookshire, though Kellner's old home still stands nearby.
Bellville
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Brothers Thomas and James Bell arrived with Austin's colony in 1822, and by 1846 Thomas's land offer won Bellville the county seat over old San Felipe. Settlers from England, Germany and across the eastern states poured in, and after the hard Reconstruction years the Santa Fe railroad's 1880 arrival doubled the population. Cotton, and later a 1915 oil strike, kept the town thriving through the twentieth century.