Navarro County
Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Formed from Robertson County. Created April 25, 1846; organized July 13, 1846. Named in honor of Jose Antonio Navarro, 1795-1871, soldier, patriot and statesman, signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Member of the Texas Congress 1838. Commissioner on the Santa Fe Expedition, delegate in 1845 to the Constitutional Convention. County seat, Corsicana.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Carved from Robertson County in the spring of 1846, Navarro County was born in the first months of Texas statehood and named for José Antonio Navarro — a Tejano soldier and statesman who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence and helped write the state's early framework. Corsicana was fixed as its county seat. The marker records the moment a stretch of blackland prairie became an organized part of the new state.
Why it matters
Naming the county for a Tejano patriot honors the often-overlooked Hispanic Texans who helped found the Republic and state, and marks Texas's rapid organization after joining the Union.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Navarro County was born in a hurry. Texas joined the United States at the very end of 1845, and the new state government spent 1846 organizing its vast territory. Big early counties were divided into smaller ones so that settlers would not have to travel days to reach a courthouse. Navarro County was carved from Robertson County, created on April 25, 1846, and organized that July.
This was blackland prairie country, with deep, dark soil that would make the region a rich farming area in the decades that followed. In 1846 it was still sparsely settled frontier, and the United States was then heading into war with Mexico.
Naming the county for José Antonio Navarro meant something in that moment. As Texas became an American state, the legislature chose to honor a Tejano, a Texan of Mexican heritage, whose career ran through every stage of the region's political life.
People & events
José Antonio Navarro was born in 1795 and grew up in San Antonio. He lived through Spanish rule, Mexican independence, the Texas Revolution and statehood. He became one of the leading Tejano supporters of Texas independence, and in 1836 he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, one of only a few native Texans to do so.
He went on to serve in the Congress of the Republic of Texas in 1838. In 1841 he served as a commissioner on the Santa Fe Expedition, the Republic's bold attempt to extend its reach and trade into New Mexico. The expedition ended badly. Its members were captured by Mexican forces, and Navarro spent years as a prisoner in Mexico before he escaped and came home.
He returned in time to help shape the new state. In 1845 he served as a delegate to the convention that accepted annexation and wrote Texas's first state constitution. A year later, the legislature gave his name to this new county. Corsicana became the county seat. Local tradition holds that the name honors Corsica, the birthplace of Navarro's father.
Its place in the American story
The story of Texas independence is often told as the story of Anglo-American settlers. Navarro's life shows that Tejanos were there too, risking everything for a cause whose outcome would not always treat them kindly. Many Tejano families lost land and standing in the years after independence, which makes Navarro's prominence, and this county's name, stand out all the more.
The county also marks a turning point in American expansion. Its creation in 1846 came during the months when Texas was becoming part of the Union and the United States was going to war with Mexico, a conflict that would add vast new territory to the nation. The organization of counties like this one was how that huge new territory became governed communities.
In a single name, Navarro County holds a fuller picture of American history, one in which Texas's founders included people with Spanish and Mexican roots.
If you visit
Corsicana, the county seat, is the natural place to start. Old county seats in Texas usually center on a courthouse square, and these squares are often the best place to get a feel for a county's history and its pride in it.
As you drive through the surrounding countryside, notice the dark, rich soil of the blackland prairie, the land that drew farmers here after the county was organized. It's a quiet, open landscape, very different from the brush country and hills where Navarro grew up.
If Navarro's story grabs you, it makes a fine thread for a longer Texas road trip. San Antonio, his hometown, keeps his memory alive, and the site where the Declaration of Independence was signed lies to the southeast. Following his life across the state is a good way to see how many different peoples built Texas.
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
- · José Antonio Navarro
Related events
- · Texas Declaration of Independence
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Petty's Chapel
Corsicana, TX
This corner of Navarro County took shape around the hardbottom creek crossings of an early route known as the Military Road, which carried travelers toward Corsicana, founded in 1848. Families like the Hamiltons and Braggs settled the sandy uplands, and in 1893 local Baptists raised the Petty's Chapel church that still holds services more than a century later. The community was reshaped by the discovery of the Corsicana oilfield in the late 19th century and by the county poor farm, established here in 1890 and closed in 1944.
Site of the First Courthouse
Corsicana, TX
When the Texas Legislature designated Corsicana as the seat of Navarro County, the location was secured in 1848 through land donated by David R. Mitchell, James C. Neill, and Thomas Smith. The county's first true courthouse was a modest log cabin built here that year, just fifteen by seventeen feet, with the judge's stand in one corner and the county clerk's table in another. A two-story frame courthouse replaced the humble cabin in 1853.
David Reed Mitchell
Corsicana, TX
David Reed Mitchell, a North Carolina–born surveyor, arrived in Texas in 1845 having already mapped the upper Trinity and Brazos country. As surveyor of the Robertson County Land District, he laid out portions of the Mercer and Peters colonies and the original plans of Navarro County and Corsicana. With partners Thomas I. Smith and James C. Neill, he donated the hundred acres on which Corsicana was founded, ran an early inn there, and remained until his death in 1853 — the only one of the three founding donors buried in the town.
Thomas Ingles Smith
Corsicana, TX
Born in Virginia in 1800, Thomas Ingles Smith soldiered in the War of 1812 under his father before coming to Texas in 1836 to join the Republic's army. He was wounded at the Battle of the Salado in 1842 and figured in the "Archive War" when Austin residents blocked his Rangers from removing the Republic's records. A frontier Ranger, Indian scout, and treaty commissioner, he lent his name to Fort Smith and helped found Corsicana before his death in 1848.