Site of Mission Nuestra Senora de la Luz

Wallisville, TX

Founded near here in 1756, the mission of Our Lady of the Light and its companion Presidio San Agustín de Ahumada were among Spain's most star-crossed outposts in Texas, planted to block French expansion from Louisiana and to minister to the Orcoquisac people. Fever, biting insects, brackish water, meager supplies, and cruel officers wore the little garrison down; the promised colonists never came, and conversions failed. By 1767 an inspector urged closure, and in 1771, fearing an Apache attack, the Spanish abandoned both posts entirely.

Wallisville, TX

In August 1754, French trader Joseph Blancpain—already a merchant in Natchitoches—crossed into Spanish-claimed territory and opened a trading post here, dealing with the Atakapan and neighboring tribes. Spain regarded the intrusion as a threat: aided by the Bidai, soldiers attacked in October and hauled the Frenchmen to prison, where Blancpain died in Mexico in 1756. On the very spot Spain then raised Presidio San Augustín de Ahumada and Mission Nuestra Señora de la Luz, later destroyed by a 1766 hurricane.

Liberty, TX

The Trinity River is the longest river lying wholly within Texas, known to Native peoples as the Arkikosa and Daycoa and named La Santísima Trinidad by Spanish explorer Alonso De León in 1690. Steamboats began working it in 1838, feeding a lively southeast-Texas trade — even a riverside meat-packing plant shipping to the West Indies — while Alabama-Coushatta boatmen carried Confederate supplies during the Civil War. In the 20th century, navigation and flood-control efforts culminated in the 1955 creation of the Trinity River Authority.

Liberty, TX

Milton Ashley Hardin came to the Texas frontier as a boy in 1826 and, in 1835, fought at the Battle of Concepcion and the Siege of Bexar during the struggle for Texas independence, earning a land grant. He later sold the tract that became the Alabama-Coushatta Indian Reservation before moving on to North Central Texas.