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.
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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.