Las Boregas Camp Site
Milam, Sabine County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Las Boregas Creek formed the eastern boundary of the 1794 Spanish land grant to Juan Ignacio Pifermo, making this grant the oldest in Sabine County. El Camino de los Tejas, a portion of El Camino Real - the main road into Spanish Texas - cost the creek near this point. During the Spanish colonial period, a well-known campsite developed near the creek. A Spanish army post was also established upstream to protect settlers and travel c. 1800. The name of the creek is possibly a misspelling of Borregas, meaning "lambs less than a year old." According to this journal, impresario Stephen F. Austin, the "Father of Texas," spent his first night in Texas on "Boreg Creek" on July 16, 1821. (2008)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Las Boregas Creek marked the eastern edge of an 1794 Spanish land grant to Juan Ignacio Pifermo—the oldest grant in Sabine County—where El Camino Real, the main road into Spanish Texas, crossed the water. A well-used campsite grew up beside the creek, and around 1800 a Spanish army post was posted upstream to guard settlers and travelers. According to his journal, Stephen F. Austin, the 'Father of Texas,' spent his very first night in Texas near this creek in July 1821.
Why it matters
The site sits on the royal road that carried Spanish colonization, and later American empresarios like Austin, into Texas—a threshold across which two eras of the region's history passed.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Juan Ignacio Pifermo
- · Stephen F. Austin
Related events
- · Austin's first night in Texas, July 16, 1821
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Milam
Milam, TX
First described by Stephen F. Austin as he camped along El Camino Real de los Tejas in 1821, Milam is among the oldest towns in Texas, originally known as Red Mound and prized by settlers for its fertile land. Sitting close to the great road, it saw a steady stream of explorers, veterans, and pioneers before losing its county seat in 1858 and slowly fading.
B. F. Morris and the Town of Joaquin
Joaquin, TX
Alabama-born Benjamin Franklin Morris came to Texas in 1838 and settled the pioneer village of Sarat, becoming a prosperous farmer and rancher. In 1884 he gave the Houston, East & West Texas Railroad a right of way through 500 acres and provided a 100-acre townsite—named for his grandson Joaquin—on the condition that a depot be built and passenger trains stop daily. A Confederate veteran, Morris also donated land for the town's First Baptist Church.
Site of the Town of Bevilport
Jasper vicinity, TX
Established by John Bevil, Bevilport was an important river navigation point from 1830 to 1860 and gave its name to the municipality first organized in 1834. It served as a mail station in 1835, was county seat of Jasper County from 1836 to 1837, and was incorporated in 1837. A business and social center on the Angelina River trade, the town thrived until the Civil War.
Site of Pattonia
Woden, TX
Founded in 1844 by riverboat pilots Robert and Moses Patton, this vanished port sat at a bend of the Angelina River on land patented to Texas Revolution general Thomas J. Rusk. The brothers proved the river navigable with a keelboat, then bought the steamboat Angelina and ran regular trade, sending cotton downstream toward the Gulf and hauling supplies up to be wagoned overland to Nacogdoches. Silting sandbars, fallen logs and dropping water levels doomed the enterprise, and the coming of the railroads finished it; today nothing at all remains of Pattonia.