On This Site Stood for a Century an Old Stone House
Nacogdoches, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On this site stood for a century an old stone house thought to have been built in 1779 by Antonio Gil YBarbo. Sold by him as community property in 1805. Headquarters in 1806 for William Barr and Samuel Davenport, Indian traders. It served as trading post, store, warehouse, town hall, fort, barracks, church, tavern, and saloon before being torn down in 1902 by W. W. and Charles Perkins, last owners. Reconstructed in 1936 on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College. This Site Marked by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
For roughly a century a stone house stood on this Nacogdoches site, thought to have been built about 1779 by town founder Antonio Gil Ybarbo and sold by him in 1805. It later served as headquarters for Indian traders William Barr and Samuel Davenport and, over its long life, did duty as trading post, warehouse, town hall, fort, barracks, church, tavern, and saloon before being demolished in 1902. A reconstruction rose in 1936 on the college campus.
Why it matters
The "Old Stone Fort" was a hub of Spanish-colonial and early frontier Nacogdoches, its many uses tracing the town's evolution across the shifting sovereignties of the borderlands.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Nacogdoches is one of the oldest towns in Texas, and its story is a borderlands story. In the late 1700s this piney East Texas country was the far northeastern edge of Spain's empire. Spanish, French, and later American interests met and overlapped here alongside the Native nations who had long called the region home.
The town took shape in 1779, when Spanish settlers who had been uprooted from the old frontier capital at Los Adaes returned to East Texas. It grew up along the great road later known as El Camino Real de los Tejas, which linked Louisiana with the Spanish settlements to the south and west. Trade, diplomacy, and suspicion all moved along that road.
After the United States bought Louisiana in 1803, Nacogdoches suddenly sat near a contested international border. Over the following decades the region saw Spanish rule, Mexican rule, filibuster expeditions, and the Texas Revolution. A sturdy building in the middle of town was bound to be pressed into service again and again.
People & events
Tradition holds that Antonio Gil Ybarbo built this stone house around 1779. Ybarbo was the leader of the returning settlers and is remembered as the founder of Nacogdoches. A substantial stone building was unusual on this frontier. It suggested permanence and authority in a place where most structures were modest.
Ybarbo sold the property as community property in 1805. By 1806 it was headquarters for William Barr and Samuel Davenport, traders who dealt with the region's Native peoples. The Indian trade was more than commerce in this period. Goods, gifts, and trading relationships were tools of diplomacy, and whoever controlled them held real influence in the borderlands.
The building's later uses read like a timeline of the town: trading post, store, warehouse, town hall, fort, barracks, church, tavern, and saloon. It became a place where people gathered to worship, drink, argue, defend themselves, and do business. It stood for about a century before its last owners, W. W. and Charles Perkins, tore it down in 1902. In 1936, during the Texas Centennial, it was reconstructed on the campus of what was then Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College.
Its place in the American story
The old stone house is a window onto a part of American history that often gets skipped: the long era when Texas was a Spanish, then Mexican, frontier. Long before cowboys and cattle drives, this region was shaped by colonial governments, Native diplomacy, and the traders who moved between them.
Its location near the border after the Louisiana Purchase puts it at the center of the westward pull of the young United States. Americans, adventurers, and would-be revolutionaries passed through Nacogdoches in the early nineteenth century. The town became a meeting point between Spanish-speaking Texas and the expanding Anglo-American frontier.
The 1936 reconstruction is part of the story too. During the Texas Centennial, Texans set out to mark and rebuild their past, and many of the state's historic markers date from that effort. The rebuilt stone house shows the history of the frontier, and it also shows how a later generation chose to remember it.
If you visit
This marker stands where the original stone house stood for about a century. As you look around modern Nacogdoches, picture a thick-walled building at the heart of a small frontier town, busy with traders, soldiers, travelers, and townspeople.
To see the house's form, head to the Stephen F. Austin State University campus, where the 1936 reconstruction stands. Visiting both places makes a nice pairing: the original spot in town, then the rebuilt structure a short drive away. Check ahead for the reconstruction's current visiting arrangements.
Nacogdoches rewards a slow day. Its historic downtown, brick streets, and the route of El Camino Real make it a natural stop on an East Texas road trip. For kids, try counting all the jobs this one building had. Few buildings anywhere have worn so many hats.
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
- · Antonio Gil Ybarbo
- · William Barr
- · Samuel Davenport
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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