The Original Townsite of Montopolis
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Jesse Cornelius Tannehill (1797-1863) founded the original townsite of Montopolis; however, indigenous peoples had lived in and travelled through the area for thousands of years. El Camino Real de los Tejas, a historic trade route, forded the Colorado river near the present-day Montopolis bridge just east of this site. In 1839 Tannehill, his wife, Jane L. (Richardson) Tannehill (1803-1855), their children and an enslaved African American family moved to a headright of 4,428 acres on the Colorado river, from which 800 acres were surveyed for the town tract. A deed recorded on July 2, 1839, established the location of a platted town on the left (north) bank of the Colorado (this marker is located near the center of the original town tract). The ambitious settlement was named Montopolis ("mont" is Latin for "mountain" and "polis" is Greek for "city"). Several families settled in the community. James Smith (1790-1845) was likely the first settler in 1838. His 1841 home is preserved one-half mile west on Boggy Creek Farm. Tannehill began laying out Montopolis in early 1838 before Edward Burleson laid out nearby Waterloo, which was renamed Austin upon its selection as the Republic of Texas' seat of government. There is evidence that Montopolis was also in the running for this honor. The Montopolis venture died within two years of its conception. By 1841, business partnerships were dissolved and the land was sold. Proximity to the growing Capital of Austin and the growing community of Govalle contributed to the end of the original Montopolis. The name endured in the area of the original town tract into the 20th century. In 1897, after a post office named Montopolis was established on the right (south) bank of the river, the community that developed around it adopted the name. When the city of Austin annexed that community in the early 1950s, memory of the original townsite location faded, but the neighborhood of Montopolis continues to thrive as a vibrant, proud community. (2019)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Long a corridor for Indigenous peoples and crossed by the El Camino Real de los Tejas, this bend of the Colorado River became the site of Jesse Cornelius Tannehill's ambitious 1838–1839 townsite of Montopolis—its name stitched from Latin "mount" and Greek "city." Tannehill moved his family and an enslaved African American family to a headright of over 4,000 acres and laid out the town before Austin was even chosen as the Republic of Texas capital, and there is evidence Montopolis was itself in the running for that honor. The venture collapsed within two years, but the name endured, and the Montopolis neighborhood thrives today.
Why it matters
Montopolis captures the speculative town-founding fever of the young Republic of Texas—and the way Austin's rise doomed its neighbors—on land already ancient with Native presence.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The bend of the Colorado River marked here has been a crossing place for a very long time — far longer than any town. Indigenous peoples lived in and moved through this country for thousands of years, and one of the great arteries of early Texas, El Camino Real de los Tejas, forded the river close to this spot. That road tied together missions, settlements, and trade across a huge stretch of land, and it explains why anyone with an eye for opportunity would look at this riverbank and imagine a city.
The late 1830s were exactly the moment for such imagining. The Republic of Texas was brand new, independent from Mexico and hungry to organize itself. Land was the currency of ambition, and the young republic was awash in it. Speculators, surveyors, and founders laid out townsites up and down the rivers, each one hoping to become the commercial hub — or better yet, the capital — of the new nation.
Into this fever of town-founding stepped Jesse Cornelius Tannehill, and the settlement he dreamed up carried its ambition in its very name.
People & events
Tannehill began laying out his town in early 1838, and in 1839 he moved onto a headright of more than four thousand acres along the Colorado, bringing his wife, Jane, their children — and an enslaved African American family, whose forced labor was part of the enterprise from the start. From that vast tract, eight hundred acres were surveyed into a town, and a deed recorded in July of 1839 fixed its location on the north bank of the river, near where this marker stands.
He named it Montopolis — 'mont' from the Latin for mountain, 'polis' from the Greek for city — a grand classical flourish for a raw frontier venture. Families came. James Smith, thought to be the first settler, had arrived in 1838, and his 1841 home still survives nearby. For a brief moment the place had every reason to believe in itself; there is even evidence Montopolis was considered as a candidate for the capital of the Republic.
But history had other plans. Not far away, Edward Burleson laid out a settlement called Waterloo, and when the republic chose it as the seat of government, Waterloo was renamed Austin. That decision was fatal to Montopolis. Within two years of its founding the partnerships dissolved, the land was sold off, and the ambitious town simply dissolved — squeezed out by the rising capital next door and the growing community of Govalle. Yet the name refused to die.
Its place in the American story
Montopolis is a near-perfect miniature of the town-founding mania that swept the young United States and its frontier republics in the early nineteenth century. Across the continent, hopeful founders platted grand cities on paper, gave them classical or aspirational names, and waited for fortune to arrive. A few became metropolises. Most, like Montopolis, faded into fields, footnotes, or neighborhoods.
The marker also tells a truth that town-founding stories often gloss over. This 'new' land was ancient with human presence, crossed for millennia by Native peoples and by the old royal road. And the labor that was meant to build the founder's dream included enslaved people, whose bondage was woven into the settlement of Texas just as it was woven into the wider American South. A single roadside stone holds all of that at once.
And there is the lesson of proximity. Montopolis died not from disaster but from being too close to a winner. When Austin was chosen, the capital's gravity pulled away the settlers, commerce, and future that Montopolis had counted on — a quiet reminder that in the contest of frontier towns, the losers vastly outnumbered the victors.
If you visit
You won't find a lost city here — that's the point. Stand near the center of what was once the original town tract and picture surveyors' stakes and a founder's confidence where ordinary streets now run. The disappearance is part of the story, and the marker exists partly to recover a location that faded from memory when Austin annexed the area in the 1950s.
Let the river do some of the work. The Colorado, and the nearby crossing where El Camino Real de los Tejas once forded it, connect you to travelers who passed this way for centuries before any town was platted. It's a good place to think about how movement — roads, rivers, fords — decides where human settlement takes root.
Montopolis today is a living neighborhood, proud and vibrant, carrying a name older than Austin's own. That continuity is worth honoring as you visit. On a road trip through the capital's history, this stop offers something the downtown monuments can't: the story of the rival that almost was, and the community that kept its name alive.
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
- · Jesse Cornelius Tannehill
- · Jane L. Tannehill
- · James Smith
- · Edward Burleson
Themes & tags
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