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.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
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.