Site of the Old Town of Texana
Edna, Jackson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founded in 1834 by Dr. F. F. Wells, personal friend of Stephen F. Austin. County seat of Jackson County from 1835-1883. Old home of Capt. Clark L. Owen of Civil War fame. Here the following were first organized in Jackson County: Methodist Church in 1838, Masonic Lodge in 1852, Presbyterian Church in 1855. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1834 by Dr. F. F. Wells, a friend of empresario Stephen F. Austin, Texana served as the seat of Jackson County from 1835 to 1883 and cradled the county's first Methodist and Presbyterian churches and Masonic lodge. When the railroad bypassed it, the once-thriving town faded away, leaving only this site to mark where it stood.
Why it matters
Texana is a classic Texas ghost town — a promising county seat that withered when the railroad chose another route, a fate shared by countless nineteenth-century American communities.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Texana was born in 1834, a restless moment in Texas history. The region was still part of Mexico, but thousands of American settlers had come in through empresario colonies, most famously those of Stephen F. Austin. Tensions between the colonists and the Mexican government were rising, and within two years they would boil over into the Texas Revolution.
The town grew up along the Navidad River in what became Jackson County. In an age before railroads, rivers and roads were the arteries of trade, and a well-placed river town could hope for great things. Texana became the county seat in 1835 and held that honor for nearly half a century.
Those decades covered an extraordinary span: the Revolution, the independent Republic of Texas, statehood in 1845, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Through all of it, Texana was the place where Jackson County residents came to record deeds, settle disputes, and do their business.
People & events
Texana's founder, Dr. F. F. Wells, was a personal friend of Stephen F. Austin, the empresario often called the Father of Texas. That link places the town squarely within the network of early colonists who shaped Anglo settlement in Texas.
The town's institutions grew one by one. According to the marker, Jackson County's first Methodist church was organized here in 1838, followed by a Masonic lodge in 1852 and a Presbyterian church in 1855. Each was a sign of a community settling in for the long haul, building congregations and fraternal ties that bound neighbors together.
Texana was also home to Captain Clark L. Owen, remembered on the marker for his Civil War service. Like many Texas towns, Texana sent its men off to that war, and their stories became part of the county's memory. Then, in 1883, the county seat moved away. When the railroad passed Texana by, the town lost its reason to exist and slowly emptied.
Its place in the American story
Texana is one of America's countless railroad ghost towns. All across the country in the late 1800s, a town's fate could be decided by where the tracks were laid. Communities that got a depot boomed; those that were bypassed often withered, as businesses and families packed up and moved to the new line.
Its story also connects to the founding of Texas itself. Through Dr. Wells's friendship with Stephen F. Austin, Texana is tied to the colonization that brought American settlers into Mexican Texas and set the stage for revolution and, eventually, statehood.
The marker itself is a piece of history too. It was erected in 1936, during the Texas Centennial, when the state placed hundreds of markers to celebrate one hundred years since independence. That effort was among the most ambitious public history campaigns of its day.
If you visit
There is not much of a town left to see here, and that is exactly the point. Standing at a ghost town site, you are asked to picture what once was: a courthouse square, church steeples, busy streets, and river traffic. Let your imagination do the work.
Today the name lives on in Lake Texana, a reservoir in the area that draws anglers, boaters, and campers. It is worth combining a visit to the marker with some time on the water or along its shores.
Nearby Edna, the town that grew up on the railroad and took over as county seat, makes a fitting companion stop. Seeing the winner and the loser of that nineteenth-century contest side by side tells the whole story better than any sign could.
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
- · F. F. Wells
- · Stephen F. Austin
- · Clark L. Owen
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Texana Presbyterian Church
Edna, TX
Jackson County's first Presbyterian congregation formed in 1855 under John Adams Brackenridge in Texana, a bustling riverport and county seat that has since faded into a ghost town. The members raised this frame sanctuary in 1859 on the eve of the Civil War. When Edna sprang up along the New York, Texas & Mexican Railroad, the building was hauled there in 1884, later served as a warehouse, and now survives as a witness to antebellum pioneer life.
Site of Camp Independence
Edna, TX
In the anxious months after San Jacinto, part of the fledgling Republic of Texas army camped here from December 1836 until President Sam Houston furloughed the restless troops in May 1837. Commanded first by Felix Huston and then by Albert Sidney Johnston, the encampment reflected the young republic's uneasy standoff with Mexico. Its darkest moment came when Captain Henry Teal was assassinated in his tent one night in May 1837, a killing that still shadows the site's memory.
John Sutherland Menefee
Edna, TX
John Sutherland Menefee, born in Tennessee in 1813, fought at the Battle of San Jacinto that won Texas its independence, then served in the Congress of the young Republic of Texas from 1837 to 1840. He lived out his years in the new state he had helped create, dying in 1884. The State of Texas honored him with this marker in 1937, the centennial era of Texas independence.
Dr. Bronaugh-Hasdorff Home
Edna, TX
Dr. J. M. Bronaugh, a practicing physician, built this home in 1866 in the town of Texana, framing it from Florida heart pine held together with square nails. When the railroad bypassed Texana in the 1880s, the house was moved to the rising town of Edna in 1883—a common fate for buildings in a frontier region reshaped by the rails. It survives as a tangible link to the earliest Anglo settlement of Jackson County.