Plaza
Gonzales, Gonzales County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Gonzales town tract of 4 square leagues had 49 squares in inner city -- 7 of these squares for public use. This one was for municipal building, but became plaza. Now called Texas Heroes Square, in honor of all Gonzales men who fought in the Texas Revolution.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Gonzales was laid out as a four-league town tract, its inner city held 49 squares, seven of them reserved for public use. This particular square was meant for a municipal building but instead became a public plaza. Today it bears the name Texas Heroes Square, honoring the men of Gonzales who took up arms in the Texas Revolution.
Why it matters
Gonzales was where the Texas Revolution's first shot was fired in 1835, and this square memorializes the townsmen who helped launch Texas's fight for independence.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Gonzales was founded in the 1820s as the main settlement of Green DeWitt's colony, one of the empresario grants Mexico used to bring Anglo-American settlers into Texas. Laying out a town meant following a plan, and Gonzales was planned on a generous scale: a town tract of four square leagues, with an inner town divided into 49 squares.
Seven of those squares were set aside for public use, reflecting Spanish and Mexican traditions of town planning, in which open public spaces anchored civic and religious life. This square was meant to hold a municipal building, the seat of local government.
Within about a decade, relations between Texas colonists and Mexico's central government had broken down. Gonzales, a frontier town on the Guadalupe River, found itself at the very center of the conflict that became the Texas Revolution.
People & events
In the fall of 1835, Mexican troops came to Gonzales to take back a small cannon that had been given to the settlers for defense against raids. The townspeople refused. The skirmish that followed in early October 1835, famous for its defiant "Come and Take It" flag, is widely remembered as the first battle of the Texas Revolution.
Gonzales men kept fighting after that day. When the Alamo was under siege in early 1836, a relief company from Gonzales rode through the lines to join the defenders and died with them. Remembered as the Immortal 32, they were the only reinforcements to reach the Alamo. When word of its fall arrived, Sam Houston's army withdrew from Gonzales, and the town was burned to keep it out of enemy hands as settlers fled east.
That history is why a square that was meant for a town hall became something else. It turned into a plaza, and today it carries the name Texas Heroes Square. The name honors every Gonzales man who fought in the Revolution, not one famous figure. It is a tribute to a whole town's sacrifice.
Its place in the American story
Texas independence led to the Republic of Texas, then to annexation by the United States in 1845, and from there to the Mexican-American War and an enormous shift in the map of North America. Gonzales sits at the start of that chain of events, which is why the town is often called the place where the Texas Revolution began.
The square's layout also points to a deeper American story. Many towns in the Southwest were planned under Spanish and Mexican rules, with central plazas and reserved public land. Long after the flags changed, their street grids and squares still carry that heritage.
Texas Heroes Square also shows how Americans have tended to remember wars: by honoring the community's ordinary citizen-soldiers, not just its generals. A town that sent its men to the Alamo chose to remember all of them together.
If you visit
Come to the plaza and spend some time there. This is a public square laid out almost two centuries ago, and it is still doing what town planners intended: giving the community a shared open space at its heart. Imagine it as a planned site for a town hall that instead became a gathering place and a memorial.
Gonzales embraces its role in the Revolution. Look around the historic town center for the other public squares from the original plan, and for the "Come and Take It" imagery that turns up all over town. The local museums and other markers nearby help fill in the October 1835 story and the Alamo relief company.
Gonzales fits well on a Texas Revolution road trip. It lies within easy driving distance of San Antonio and the Alamo, which makes it a natural first chapter before you head west to see where the Gonzales volunteers made their last stand.
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 events
- · Texas Revolution
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Andrew Ponton
Gonzales, TX
Andrew Ponton came to Texas in 1829, settled in Green DeWitt's colony, and by 1834 served as alcalde—mayor—of Gonzales. When Mexican forces demanded the town's cannon in 1835, his delay in surrendering it helped spark the "Come and Take It" fight now remembered as the opening battle of the Texas Revolution. He also helped rally the Gonzales men, the "Immortal 32," who answered Travis's call and died at the Alamo, and he later served the Republic of Texas as a legislator and judge.
James W. Robinson
Gonzales, TX
Indiana-born James W. Robinson came to Texas in 1833 and was elected the Republic's first lieutenant governor in 1835, briefly serving as governor before shouldering a musket as a private at the Battle of San Jacinto in April 1836. He later settled in Gonzales, sat as a district judge, and served on the state Supreme Court. The office he first held became the second-highest in Texas, wielding broad power over the Senate and legislation.
Gonzales Cannon Burial Site
Gonzales, TX
At this spot in a peach orchard, the colonists of Gonzales buried their contested cannon to hide it from 150 Mexican dragoons sent to seize it in September 1835. Two days later they dug it up, mounted it on ox-cart wheels, loaded it with chains and scrap iron, and fired what is remembered as the first shot of the Texas Revolution.
Jail Square
Gonzales, TX
First mapped in 1825 as Market Square, this Gonzales public square had become known as Jail Square by 1836. That year, as Santa Anna's army advanced, Gonzales was burned by order of General Sam Houston to keep its buildings and supplies from falling into enemy hands—part of the desperate retreat known as the Runaway Scrape. Gonzales, already famed as the site of the war's opening 'Come and Take It' clash, thus sacrificed itself in the campaign for independence.