Tehuacana
Tehuacana, Limestone County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Located at one of highest points (altitude 661 ft.) between Dallas and Houston. First noted in history by Philip Nolan's trading expedition, 1797. Home in early days of Tehuacana Indians, a Wichita tribe, who engaged in farming and peaceful pursuits until they were destroyed in early 1830s by Cherokees. Town is on Mexican land grant obtained 1835 by John Boyd, member First Congress Republic of Texas. In 1847 Boyd became first postmaster, and in 1849 nominated Tehuacana for capital of State of Texas. However, Austin won in election held in 1850. Tehuacana Academy, a Presbyterian school locally organized and supported, operated ten years. It was organized and supported, operated ten years. It was closed during Civil War, but furnished incentive (with help of Boyd) for founding in 1869 of Trinity University. Boyd's gift of 1,520 acres of land for college use includes present campus, where Trinity (now in San Antonio) operated until 1902. School plant was deeded to Methodist Protestant Church, which relocated here Westminster College, one of first junior colleges (1916) in Texas. The Congregational Methodist Church bought the property in 1953 and now operates Westminster College and Bible Institute on the historic campus.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Perched on one of the highest points between Dallas and Houston, Tehuacana was home to the Tehuacana Indians, a Wichita people who farmed here until Cherokee raids destroyed them in the early 1830s. Settler John Boyd secured a Mexican land grant in 1835, and the town he built even vied to become the state capital in 1850. Its Presbyterian academy helped spark the founding of Trinity University in 1869, and later colleges kept the hilltop a seat of learning for generations.
Why it matters
Tehuacana's layered history—Wichita homeland, contested capital, and cradle of a major Texas university—captures the collision and succession of peoples that made frontier Texas.
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Related people
- · John Boyd
- · Philip Nolan
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Tehuacana Cemetery
Tehuacana, TX
Tehuacana grew up around John Boyd, a Republic of Texas congressman who moved here in the 1840s and opened the town's first post office in his store in 1847. His gift of land and money brought Trinity University to the hilltop town in 1869, and the cemetery's oldest documented grave belongs to his infant granddaughter, who died in 1850. Among the many small headstones testifying to the frontier's harshness lie college founders, a state comptroller, and Boyd himself, a roll call of the town's rise as an early Texas education center.
Pisgah Ridge
Richland, TX
Pisgah Ridge, a limestone outcropping named for the biblical Mount Pisgah, long drew people to its caves, creeks, and game. In 1830 Cherokees reportedly burned a village here that had been shared by Tonkawa and Tawakoni people, and within a few years settlers of European descent arrived, building a stagecoach inn and small communities along the Springfield Road. The area gained a rough reputation from a family feud and its links to outlaw John Wesley Hardin before the railroad bypassed it in the 1870s and drew residents away.
Old Springfield
Mexia, TX
Founded in 1838 around a spring donated by Moses Herrin, Old Springfield grew into the seat of newly formed Limestone County by 1846, complete with a two-story brick courthouse, a Methodist district that seeded the Northwest Texas Conference, and a short-lived college. The town's fortunes turned when the Houston & Texas Central Railroad passed it by in 1870, and two devastating fires in 1873 — one consuming the courthouse — hastened its end as buildings were carted off and the county seat moved to Groesbeck. Today only the old cemetery and Springfield Lake, inside Fort Parker State Park, carry the name of what was once the county's leading town.
Fort Parker
Groesbeck, TX
Built in 1834 by the Parker family — leaders of the first Predestinarian Baptist body to reach Texas — this private stockade sheltered several allied families on the Central Texas frontier. On May 18, 1836, a Comanche raid killed several of the men and carried off captives, among them nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker. She grew up among the Comanche, married Chief Peta Nocona, and bore Quanah Parker, who would become the last chief of the Comanche.