Fort Travis
Port Bolivar, Galveston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In early 1836, soon after Texas declared independence from Mexico, Republic of Texas President David Burnet dispatched Colonel Ed Harcourt to Galveston Island to erect a fort. Using army recruits and slave labor Harcourt built an octagonal earth and timber fortification armed with six and twelve-pound gun mounts appropriated from the Texas Navy vessel CAYUGA. Named Fort Travis in honor of William B. Travis, famous defender of the Alamo, it was located at the east end of the island. After high winds damaged the fort in 1837 the site was converted into a gun battery called Fort point, its present name. In 1898-99, with the beginning of Federal development of the Port of Galveston, a second Fort Travis was established across Galveston Bay at Bolivar Point near the former site of a Civil War Confederate fortification called Fort Green. Two batteries, named Davis and Ernst, were completed in 1899 and a third, named Kimble, completed in 1922. Coastal defense facilities were added to the fort during World Wars I and II. Fort Travis was decommissioned and sold as war surplus in 1949. Besides its obvious military uses, Fort Travis also served as a refuge from hurricanes and as a Civil Defense shelter for area residents. Incise on back: Funding for this replacement marker was provided through a generous grant from the Hoblitzelle Foundation and the Texas Historical Foundation.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Just after Texas declared independence in 1836, President David Burnet sent Colonel Ed Harcourt to Galveston Island to throw up a fortification, and using army recruits and enslaved labor Harcourt built an octagonal earth-and-timber fort armed with guns taken from the Texas Navy schooner Cayuga. Named for Alamo defender William B. Travis, the original fort was soon storm-damaged, but the name endured: a second Fort Travis rose at Bolivar Point in 1898-99 near a former Civil War Confederate work. Its coastal batteries were expanded through both World Wars before the fort was decommissioned and sold as surplus in 1949, later sheltering residents from hurricanes.
Why it matters
Guarding the approaches to Galveston across more than a century, Fort Travis links the Texas Revolution to the nation's twentieth-century coastal defenses in a single strategic place.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Spring of 1836 was one of the most frightening moments in Texas history. Texas had just declared independence from Mexico, the Alamo had fallen, and the new Republic's government was on the move ahead of Mexican forces. Its leaders knew the coast mattered. Galveston Island guarded one of the best harbors on the Texas shore, and supplies, ships and escape routes all ran through it.
That is why the interim government moved quickly to fortify the island. Texas had few trained engineers and almost no money, so the fort was built with whatever was at hand: earth, timber, recruits and the forced labor of enslaved people.
The Fort Travis story then spans more than a century. As the Port of Galveston grew into a major Gulf gateway, the federal government turned to the problem of defending it. The late 1890s were a time of rising American naval ambition and coastal-defense building, and war with Spain broke out in 1898. The new batteries on Bolivar Point belonged to that nationwide push to protect important harbors.
In the twentieth century, the two World Wars brought fresh worry about threats from the sea, and the fort was upgraded both times. After 1945 the old coastal forts lost their purpose quickly, and many of them, Fort Travis included, were sold off.
People & events
The fort's name comes from William B. Travis, the young commander of the Alamo, who died when the mission fell in March 1836. His last appeals for help turned him into a symbol of Texan defiance almost at once, and naming a fort for him only weeks later shows how quickly that memory took hold.
The order to build came from David Burnet, interim president of the Republic of Texas. The work fell to Colonel Ed Harcourt. His crews of army recruits and enslaved laborers raised an eight-sided fort of earth and timber at the east end of Galveston Island. Its guns came from the Texas Navy vessel Cayuga, a sign of how the young Republic had to borrow from one service to arm another.
The first fort did not last. High winds damaged it in 1837, and the site became a gun battery called Fort Point, a name that survives today. The story could have ended there.
Instead the name came back at the end of the century. In 1898-99 a second Fort Travis went up across the bay at Bolivar Point, near where a Confederate work called Fort Green had stood during the Civil War. Batteries Davis and Ernst were finished in 1899 and Battery Kimble in 1922, and more coastal-defense works followed in both World Wars. The fort also sheltered local families during hurricanes and served as a Civil Defense shelter, until it was decommissioned and sold as war surplus in 1949.
Its place in the American story
Few places tie the Texas Revolution so directly to modern American military history. The Fort Travis name runs from a hastily built earthwork of the Republic of Texas to concrete batteries of the United States coastal-defense system, and both guarded the same approaches to Galveston.
The second fort was part of a national story. Around the turn of the twentieth century the United States built a chain of heavily armed forts to protect its major harbors, and Galveston was among the Gulf ports considered important enough to defend. Fort Travis belongs with those sites along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts.
The marker also records an uncomfortable fact: enslaved labor helped build the Republic of Texas's defenses. That truth belongs in the story of how the Republic was built.
Finally, the fort's role as a storm refuge is a reminder that on this coast the greatest danger has often come from the weather, not from enemy warships. On the Texas Gulf Coast, surviving hurricanes has shaped history as much as any war.
If you visit
The Bolivar Point site of the second Fort Travis sits near the Port Bolivar landing of the ferry that crosses between Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula. If you are driving the coast, the crossing is part of the fun. Watch for ships, gulls and sometimes dolphins in the channel the fort was built to protect.
The grounds are now a public seashore park. Look for the concrete remains of the old gun batteries, which are massive and plain, built to take punishment. Standing on top of them, you can see why the military prized this point: it overlooks the entrance between the Gulf and Galveston Bay.
Bring a sense of the long story with you. The 1836 fort was on the far side of the water, at the east end of Galveston Island, so the view across the channel takes in both chapters at once. Stop at the marker, then walk out toward the shore.
This is flat, open, windswept country. Sun protection and water are a good idea, and a stop here combines easily with beach time on the peninsula or an afternoon in historic Galveston.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · William B. Travis
- · David Burnet
- · Ed Harcourt
Themes & tags
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