Victoria County
Victoria, Victoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In this county the first European setlement in Texas, Fort St. Louis, was built by the French explorer La Salle in 1685. Between 1722 and 1726 a Spanish presidio and the Mission of Espiritu Santo were established. Settled by colonists under Martin De Leon in 1824 who named his capital later the county seat, Victoria. From it the county, created March 17, 1836, took its name. (1936)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Few Texas counties carry so deep a layering of history. Here in 1685 the French explorer La Salle built Fort St. Louis, the first European settlement in Texas; between 1722 and 1726 the Spanish answered with a presidio and the Mission of Espíritu Santo. In 1824 Martín De León led Mexican colonists to found the town he named Victoria, and when the county was created in March 1836 it took the same name.
Why it matters
This ground witnessed the contest of French, Spanish, and Mexican claims that shaped the early European story of Texas before it joined the United States.
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Related people
- · Robert de La Salle
- · Martín De León
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
1892 Victoria County Courthouse
Victoria, TX
Victoria's public square traces to Martín de León's 1824 townsite of Guadalupe Victoria, and by 1849 the county raised its first courthouse there. In 1892 acclaimed architect J. Riely Gordon designed a Romanesque Revival successor, adapted to the Texas heat with a light-filled central atrium; contractors Martin, Byrne & Johnston completed it after Gordon left the project. Saved by residents in the 1960s and restored near the turn of the 21st century, it stands as a monument to Texas courthouse architecture.
Band Stand
Victoria, TX
Built before 1885 on the Constitution Street side of Victoria's public square, this band stand hosted concerts and public gatherings for the growing South Texas town. In 1923 it was moved to the center of the square and set atop the foundation of the old standpipe, and it was fully restored in 1962. It remains a fixture of civic life in one of Texas's oldest towns.
De Leon Plaza
Victoria, TX
Laid out by Martín De León, the empresario who founded Victoria in the 1820s, this square began life as the Plaza de la Constitución, patterned on the central plazas of traditional Spanish municipalities. His son-in-law José M. Carbajal expanded the plan in an 1830s survey, and over the decades the square gained a brick-lined well, a windmill, a bandstand, and Pompeo Coppini's 1912 Confederate memorial. In 1941 the United Daughters of the Confederacy led a beautification effort that renamed it De León Plaza in honor of the city's founder.
Joe F. and Amelia Jecker House
Victoria, TX
This Victoria lot traces to an 1841 Republic of Texas land grant, passing through a Presbyterian minister who organized a church across the street and, by 1859, physician James B.P. January, a veteran of the Army of the Republic and the U.S.-Mexico War who built a home here. Later owners hired noted architect Jules C. Leffland to remodel it, and contractor Henry Schroeder completed the Victorian renovation in 1904. Its turned spindle friezework and jigsawn brackets survive as the closest home to De Leon Plaza.