Site of the Camp

Columbus, TX

A Philadelphia native, Wallace served as United States Consul to the Texas colonies from 1829 to 1832 before joining Austin's Colony and the campaigns for Texas independence. In 1837 he helped plat the town of Columbus with W. B. DeWees, and he later fought at the 1840 Battle of Plum Creek against the Comanche and under General Edward Burleson in the 1842 defense against Mexican invasion.

Columbus, TX

Columbus traces its roots to 1823, when Stephen F. Austin eyed the site — shown on his 1835 map as Montezuma — for his colony's capital. The provisional government created the municipality of Colorado in January 1836 and ordered the town laid out as its seat; that spring the county was born and the town soon incorporated. As a railroad terminal from 1869 to 1873 it thrived as a trading hub, and its marker honors generations of pioneers, defenders of Gonzales, San Jacinto veterans, Confederate officers, and citizens of distinction who called the county home.

Columbus, TX

By 1822 Stephen F. Austin had drawn some 150 families to his colony on the Colorado and Brazos rivers, where fear of Indian raids was constant. After the Mexican governor Trespalacios organized local defense, colonists in 1823 raised a small company under Moses Morrison, and Austin pledged ten more men at his own expense to serve as "Rangers." Though the Texas Rangers were not formally organized until 1835, these earliest ranging companies became the model for the force that followed.

Columbus, TX

The front of this Columbus house dates to the mid-1800s, when it was owned by Stephen Townsend, a member of a prominent local family and a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto who, as the county's first sheriff in 1837, took part in a court held under a famous nearby oak. A later owner joined a second structure to the first in 1902 and added a porch, and since 1951 the home has belonged to former State Representative Homer Koliba and his wife Bernice, a Townsend descendant.