Site of Old Wallisville
Wallisville, Chambers County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Settled in 1825 by Elisha H. R. Wallis, a pioneer from Georgia, on land in grant of Joseph Vehlein, a contractor working to place colonists in Texas. Chambers County was organized in 1858; wallisville was made county seat. A post office was granted in 1859, and town became a thriving retail market. Many county records were burned in a courthouse fire in 1875. A brick and stone courthouse, with a jail and an unique hanging tower (for executions) was completed in 1886. By 1900 the town had 728 people, a shipyard, a lumber yard, a cotton gin, a skating rink, several stores and an export house. By land, there was daily hack service to Liberty; and sloops made regular runs from here to Galveston. Chambers County's first newspaper, "Wallisville Age," was published here. the town remained county seat until 1908 when the courthouse was moved to Anahuac after the famous "County Seat Hog War" over issue of letting animals roam at large. In that year Wallisville lost few people, but in 1915 a storm almost destroyed the town. Part of the historic townsite is now included in Wallisville Reservoir, constructed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Elisha H. R. Wallis settled here in 1825 within an empresario grant, and by 1858 Wallisville was the seat of newly organized Chambers County. It grew into a busy market town with a shipyard, cotton gin, skating rink, and the county's first newspaper, linked to Galveston by sloop and to Liberty by daily stage — even boasting a courthouse with a tower built for executions. The county seat left in 1908 after the celebrated "County Seat Hog War," a storm battered the town in 1915, and part of the old site now lies beneath the Wallisville Reservoir.
Why it matters
Wallisville compresses a century of Texas coastal-plain history — colonization, county-seat rivalry, and eventual inundation by a federal reservoir — into a single vanished townsite.
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Related people
- · Elisha H. R. Wallis
- · Joseph Vehlein
Related events
- · County Seat Hog War
Themes & tags
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