Site of the Town of Alabama
Austonio, Houston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Important shipping point before the Civil War. Here was established Trinity College, the first institution of higher education in Houston County. Its charter was granted on January 30, 1841 by the Congress of the Republic of Texas. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Before the Civil War the town of Alabama was an important shipping point in Houston County, and it claimed a notable distinction: Trinity College, the county's first institution of higher learning, chartered on January 30, 1841, by the Congress of the Republic of Texas. The town has since faded from the map, leaving only this 1936 state marker to record what once stood here.
Why it matters
A vanished river town that hosted the county's first college captures both the ambition of the young Republic of Texas and the impermanence of its early commercial settlements.
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Related events
- · Chartering of Trinity College
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Samuel Cartmill Hiroms was born in 1836 to parents among Stephen F. Austin's 'Old Three Hundred,' the first Anglo-American colonists of Mexican Texas. A schoolteacher and county surveyor, he served in the Confederate Army before moving his family to Houston County and settling the Creek community — later Austinio — in 1878, where he received land for his teaching and helped lead the local Methodist church.
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