Westward Expansion

Stanton, TX

In 1881, Carmelite monks set out to plant a monastery and a German Catholic colony on the West Texas plains, raising the first Catholic church between Fort Worth and El Paso. Adobe-and-brick buildings followed—the monastery in 1884, St. Joseph's Church in 1885—and Sisters of Divine Providence, then Sisters of Mercy, ran schools and a convent academy here. The Carmelites disbanded in 1897, and a tornado in 1938 ended the sisters' work, leaving only ruins, a dormitory, and the cemetery.

Snyder, TX

William Henry "Pete" Snyder — a Civil War veteran who had mined Colorado gold, built Kansas railroads, and hauled freight and buffalo hides — opened Snyder's first trading post here in 1878, its lumber freighted by ox-wagon from Fort Worth. The store supplied buffalo hunters living in dugouts along Deep Creek. After three years Snyder left the trade, laid out part of the original townsite, and sold lots before moving to Colorado City, where he died in 1916.

Haltom City, TX

When Tarrant County was organized, the community of Birdville served as its first county seat from 1849 to 1856, with 80 acres set aside for public use and a courthouse foundation laid on donated land. A bitterly contested 1856 election moved the seat to Fort Worth, a result upheld in court in the case of Walker vs. Tarrant County. The rivalry over the county seat was one of the fiercest in early North Texas.

Austin, TX

After fire destroyed the previous statehouse in 1881, Texas built this three-story brick Temporary Capitol in 1882–1883, the third capitol to stand in Austin. During its five busy years it saw legislation to fund education and to halt the fence-cutting that had erupted into a range war, hosted the first classes of the University of Texas, and even witnessed cattle baron Charles Goodnight wheel in $100,000 in cash to force a land settlement. After the grand new Capitol opened, the building served as a high school and offices until it, too, burned in 1899.

Austin, TX

Austin's Methodists organized in 1840, in the earliest days of the Republic's new capital, and by 1847 were worshiping near Congress and 4th Street. They bought this site in 1853 and built here under the Rev. John W. Phillips, replacing it with a larger sanctuary in 1883 under the Rev. A. E. Goodwyn. Known over the years as Central Church and Tenth Street Church — and drawing legislators and other officials to its pews — the congregation became First Methodist in 1909 and moved to Lavaca and 12th Street in 1923.

San Augustine, TX

Among the most influential newspapers of the Republic of Texas, the "Red Lander" began when W. W. Parker bought the equipment of Galveston's "Texas Chronicle" and brought it to San Augustine in 1837. On its staff was John S. "Rip" Ford, later celebrated as a Texas Ranger and Confederate officer. Alanson W. Canfield bought the paper in 1840 and published a widely circulated weekly until 1853; as rival papers in other cities rose in prestige, the "Red Lander" finally ceased in 1861.

Summit County, UT

This spot in Utah's Summit County marks where a lone tree once stood exactly 1,000 miles west of Omaha along the original Union Pacific line, completed in 1869. Railroad crews and passengers celebrated the 'Thousand Mile Tree' as a milestone on the newly finished transcontinental railroad. It became a famous photo stop on the journey across the West.

San Augustine, TX

In 1826, colonizer Hayden Edwards defied Mexican expulsion orders, declared the Republic of Fredonia, and raised a flag of "Independence, Liberty and Justice." When settlers along the Ayish Bayou refused to join him, he ordered them banished — and on January 21, 1827, a small force of Anglo settlers and sixty Native American allies seized the Fredonian fort here without firing a shot, capturing 200 men. News of the rout sent Edwards fleeing to the United States, collapsing the rebellion.

San Antonio, TX

In late October 1835, as the Texas Revolution ignited, Stephen F. Austin camped here while gathering volunteers for the campaign against the Mexican garrison at San Antonio. Soon after Austin left to serve as commissioner to the United States, Texan forces under Ben Milam and Frank W. Johnson stormed the town, capturing it on December 10, 1835. This ground marks a pivotal staging point in the fight that would lead toward Texas independence.

Old Glory, TX

Rayner was the first county seat of Stonewall County, its courthouse erected in 1888 as the young county organized its government. Ten years later, in 1898, the seat of government moved to Aspermont, and Rayner faded. This 1936 state marker records where the county's first courthouse once stood.

Crockett, TX

This corner of Crockett has hosted commerce since 1837, when surveyor James H. Collard opened a general store here. The Collins family kept a store on the spot for decades until 1890, when the Pickwick Hotel rose in its place. Rechristened for frontier hero Davy Crockett in 1927, the hotel even housed county offices during a courthouse rebuild before fire finally destroyed it in 1972.

Odessa, TX

On the raw West Texas frontier, brothers Tol and Lish Dawson ran a saloon where liquor came in forty-gallon barrels and ice for drinks was hauled in by the Texas & Pacific Railroad. Lish served as Ector County sheriff in 1891–92 while also keeping a barber chair and tending bar. When temperance-minded clubwomen — the "White Ribboners" — pushed back against saloons, the Dawsons' business ran afoul of township liquor rules, and both Lish's office and the saloon were lost.

Irving, TX

Mississippi-born Daniel Webster Gilbert trained under his physician brother before earning a medical degree in St. Louis and returning to Texas in 1881. From an office on his hilltop homestead he served the scattered communities around what became Irving, later farming with progressive methods, running the Gilbert Dairy, and training pharmacists. When Irving was platted in 1903 he moved his practice into town and helped organize its bank, doctoring there until his death in 1930.

El Paso, TX

On January 29, 1882, the congregation of Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church, South, first gathered in a new frame sanctuary with arched windows and a 40-foot bell tower — the first church building erected in the young city of El Paso. Built under the Rev. John R. Carter, it beat out rival congregations for the honor. The church later raised a second sanctuary here before relocating in 1906.

Leona, TX

Here in 1846 a simple log building became the first courthouse of newly organized Leon County, and that November its first officials—chief justice, sheriff, clerk, and commissioners—took their posts. The little seat of government at Leona lasted only until 1850, when the county seat moved on to Centerville. The site marks the earliest machinery of local government on this stretch of the Texas frontier.

Big Lake, TX

When Reagan County was carved out of the vast West Texas ranchlands and organized in 1903, its first slate of officials took office in a courthouse on this site, deep in the sparsely settled Permian Basin. The roster of judge, clerk, sheriff, surveyor, and commissioners reflects the machinery of frontier self-government taking root on the open range. In 1925 the county seat moved to Big Lake, and the state marked this founding spot in 1936 during the Texas Centennial.

Corsicana, TX

When the Texas Legislature designated Corsicana as the seat of Navarro County, the location was secured in 1848 through land donated by David R. Mitchell, James C. Neill, and Thomas Smith. The county's first true courthouse was a modest log cabin built here that year, just fifteen by seventeen feet, with the judge's stand in one corner and the county clerk's table in another. A two-story frame courthouse replaced the humble cabin in 1853.

El Paso, TX

On September 14, 1849, Brevet Major Jefferson Van Horne established this post with four companies of the Third U.S. Infantry, first calling it Post El Paso. Re-garrisoned in 1854, it was renamed Fort Bliss to honor Brevet Major William Wallace Smith Bliss. The original post was finally abandoned in 1868 as the shifting Rio Grande encroached on its grounds.

OIton, TX

Created in 1876 but too sparsely settled to organize until it mustered 21 qualified voters in 1908, Lamb County built its first courthouse — a nine-room frame building raised by donated labor — at Olton. After fire destroyed it in 1922, a brick-and-concrete courthouse rose here in 1922–23, only for a 1946 election to move the county seat to Littlefield.

Fort Worth, TX

Fort Worth's Masons organized in 1854 and by 1857 had built a two-story brick hall on land donated at the edge of the young settlement. The lodge room sat above a ground-floor school, while the first floor also hosted public meetings and church services — a civic anchor in a town still finding its shape. A bell added in 1871 announced stagecoach arrivals, fires, and the start of the school day until the growing lodge moved to larger quarters in 1878.

San Augustine, TX

On January 7, 1838, with the rites of the Masonic order, the cornerstone was laid here for the first Methodist Episcopal church building erected in the Republic of Texas. The Reverend Littleton Fowler and General Thomas J. Rusk—a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence—delivered the addresses at this early milestone of organized religion in the new republic.

Gonzales County, TX

Near this spot on October 2, 1835, Texas colonists answered the Mexican government's demand to surrender their small cannon with a defiant "come and take it." The skirmish at Gonzales — the "first shot" of the Texas Revolution — sent Mexican troops retreating toward Bexar and set the colonies on the road to independence. This granite-and-bronze monument, designed by Waldine Tauch, was raised generations later to mark the ground.

San Marcos, TX

Officially named Villa de San Marcos de Neve, this settlement was founded by Mexican colonists in 1807 and counted just 81 residents at the start of 1808. A devastating flood that year, followed by repeated raids, made the site untenable, and the villagers abandoned it by 1812. Its brief life marks the first attempt to plant a town on the San Marcos River.

Houston, TX

On this Houston ground once stood the executive residence of the young Republic of Texas. Sam Houston, the republic's first elected president, lived here from November 1837 to December 1838, followed by his successor Mirabeau B. Lamar through October 1839. The state marked the site in 1936 during the Texas Centennial.

Deer Park, TX

This was the 1836 homesite of Dr. George Moffit Patrick (1801–1889), a pioneer surveyor of early Texas. After the decisive Battle of San Jacinto, the victorious Texas army encamped here, and the young Republic's cabinet met on the grounds. The State of Texas marked the spot in 1936, the centennial of independence.

Nacogdoches, TX

Antonio Gil y Barbo, a Spanish frontiersman born in 1729, founded modern Nacogdoches in 1779 and became a leader who matched wits with Spanish governors on behalf of the region's early settlers—famously bringing back exiles who had been forced to abandon the area. This marker stands at the site of his home, remembering the man behind one of the oldest towns in Texas.

Yorktown, TX

Captain John York came to Texas as a member of one of Stephen F. Austin's ranging companies, and in 1835 commanded a company at the capture of San Antonio during the Texas Revolution. The town of Yorktown, laid out on his land in 1848, was named in his honor. Born on Independence Day in 1800, he was killed by Indians that same year, 1848.

Nacogdoches, TX

Charles S. Taylor, born in London in 1808, made his home in Nacogdoches from 1830 until his death and signed the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836. He served the young republic and county as land commissioner and as Chief Justice of Nacogdoches County. The State of Texas marked the site of his home in 1936, the centennial of independence.

Utley, TX

Robert M. Coleman was one of the founding figures of the Texas Republic — a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, an aide to General Sam Houston at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto, and a commander of frontier Rangers. He drowned in 1837, but tragedy followed his family: in 1839 his widow Elizabeth and son Albert were killed and young Thomas captured in an Indian raid near their homesite. The State of Texas honored him with this marker in 1936, and a supplemental plate added in 1968 records his role as an early official and namesake of Coleman County.

Montgomery, TX

This site marks the home of Dr. Charles B. Stewart (1806–1885), a founding figure of Texas who served in the 1835 Consultation and became the Republic's first Secretary of State. A signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, he later represented Montgomery County at the 1845 Constitutional Convention that brought Texas into the Union and served in the state legislature. The State of Texas erected this monument in 1936, the state's centennial year.

San Augustine, TX

Elisha Roberts (1785–1844) was an early and influential citizen of San Augustine, serving as alcalde in 1831 and playing an important role in the Fredonian Rebellion, an early revolt against Mexican authority in Texas. His home was known as a haven of hospitality to travelers passing along the eastern gateway into Texas. The State of Texas marked the site of his home in 1936, the centennial of Texas independence.

Granbury vicinity, TX

Elizabeth Crockett, widow of Alamo hero David Crockett, spent her final years on the Texas frontier and died here in 1860 at the age of 74. She had come west to claim land granted for her famous husband's service, outliving him by nearly a quarter century. This site marks the home where that long journey ended.

Beasley, TX

By the time Elizabeth Powell received this land grant in 1831, the Texas frontier was filling with Anglo-American colonists under Mexican rule — settlers whose grievances would soon erupt into revolution. Five years later this spot became a hinge point of that war: it marked the farthest eastern reach of General Urrea's column and the southern turn of Santa Anna's army toward the Brazos and San Jacinto. After Sam Houston's decisive victory at San Jacinto in April 1836, the defeated Mexican forces camped near here as they withdrew.

Beach City, TX

This site marks the location of a home built around 1860 for Sam Houston—the victor of San Jacinto, president of the Republic of Texas, U.S. senator, and governor. He occupied the residence during parts of 1861 and 1862, the final years of a long career that closed as the Civil War engulfed the state he had helped create. Houston, who opposed secession and was removed as governor for refusing to swear loyalty to the Confederacy, spent his last years on the Gulf Coast he knew so well.

Independence, TX

On this Independence, Texas, lot once stood a house built in 1837 that later became home to Sam Houston and his family, who first occupied it in 1854. Houston — hero of San Jacinto, president of the Republic of Texas, and later U.S. senator and governor — spent time here in the town where his wife Margaret's family had deep roots. The original dwelling was torn down and rebuilt at the end of the 19th century.

Perry, TX

On the night of January 1, 1839, in the frontier settlement of the young Republic of Texas, Indians attacked the home of George Morgan that once stood nearby. The raid killed George Morgan, his wife, Mrs. Jackson Morgan, and Miss Adeline Marlin. The tragedy was one of many violent clashes along the exposed edge of settlement in Falls County.

Jasper, TX

This site marks the home of George Washington Smyth, one of the founding figures of the Republic of Texas. Smyth signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, helped draft the constitution, ran the boundary line between Texas and the United States, and served in the Texas Congress, the U.S. Congress, and the General Land Office. He and his wife Frances lived here through the turbulent decades of Texas independence, statehood, and civil war.

Nacogdoches, TX

James Dill came from Pennsylvania to the Texas-Louisiana borderlands as a frontier Indian trader in the era when this country was still ruled from Mexico City. Trusted by Spanish authorities, he became the first alcalde — roughly a mayor and magistrate — of Nacogdoches under the new Mexican government in 1821. The State of Texas marked his home site during the 1936 Centennial.

San Patricio, TX

Born in County Sligo, Ireland, James McGloin partnered with John McMullen to win a Mexican contract in 1828 to settle two hundred families in Texas, landing his colonists at El Copano in 1830 and laying out the town of San Patricio in 1834. He built his home on this site in 1855 and died here the following year. His life bridged the Irish diaspora and the Mexican-era colonization that helped populate South Texas on the eve of the Republic.

Brazoria, TX

John Austin lived at the turbulent birth of Anglo Texas. He rode with the ill-fated Long Expedition of 1819, settled among Stephen F. Austin's colonists, and served as alcalde of Brazoria before commanding at the 1832 Battle of Velasco, one of the first armed clashes between Texas colonists and Mexican troops. He signed the Turtle Bayou Resolutions that same year, declaring the colonists' grievances, and died in 1833 — just before the revolution he had helped set in motion.

Falls County, TX

John Marlin built his home on the Central Texas frontier in 1835, in the uneasy borderlands of the new Republic of Texas. On a January day in 1839 a large party of Indians attacked the house, but its handful of defenders drove them off in a sharp fight in which one defender was injured.

West Columbia, TX

Josiah Hughes Bell was one of the 'Old Three Hundred,' the first families Stephen F. Austin brought to colonize Texas under Mexican authority beginning in 1821, and he served as the colony's first alcalde. On the sprawling land grant he received in 1824 grew the town of Columbia, which in 1836 became the first capital of the Republic of Texas. The marker stands where his home once anchored that early settlement.

Nacogdoches, TX

A native son of Nacogdoches, Juan Antonio Padilla rose to serve as land commissioner in 1829 and as vice-governor of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas, then took an active part in the Texas Revolution. He died in Houston in 1839, and his wife, Maria Montes del Padilla, died at their Nacogdoches home in 1846. A 1936 state marker honors the site where they lived.

Galveston, TX

This site marks the home of Michael Branaman Menard, who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836 and served in the Congress of the Republic of Texas. Best remembered as the founder of the city of Galveston, Menard helped turn the island into the young Republic's principal port. He lived from 1805 to 1856.

Richmond, TX

This Richmond site was the home of Mirabeau B. Lamar, second president of the Republic of Texas, where he lived from 1851 until his death in 1859. Remembered as the father of Texas education for laying the foundation of the state's public school system, Lamar spent his final years here after a career at the center of Texas independence and nationhood.

Oran, TX

This is the 1855 home site of Oliver Loving, remembered as the first man to drive Texas cattle to distant markets. In the years that followed he blazed the routes that opened the cattle-trail era before his death in 1867, and both Loving Valley and Loving County carry his name. The State of Texas erected this marker in 1936.

Richmond, TX

Randal Jones joined James Long's filibustering expedition into Texas in 1819, served as a militia captain under Stephen F. Austin in 1824, and sat in the 1835 Consultation that set the Texas Revolution in motion. On land granted to him in 1824 he built a house where the famed scout Erastus "Deaf" Smith died in 1837. The state marked the site during the 1936 Texas centennial.

Austin, TX

Reuben Hornsby and his wife Sarah built this home in 1832, the first in what is now Travis County and part of Stephen F. Austin's colonizing effort on the Texas frontier. Renowned for their hospitality, the Hornsbys nursed Josiah Wilbarger here after he was scalped and left for dead in 1833. Hornsby and his sons rode as Rangers and Indian fighters, and Captain John J. Tumlinson's company was organized on this very ground in 1836.

Meyersville, TX

Robert Justus Kleberg, born in Germany in 1803, came to Texas in 1834 and fought at the Battle of San Jacinto in Captain Moseley Baker's company during the Texas Revolution. He went on to serve in the state legislature as a senator and lived in the Meyersville area until his death at Yorktown, Texas, in 1888. A Texas county was later named in his honor.

Wharton, TX

Born in Georgia in 1806, Robert McAlpin Williamson edited some of Texas's pioneer newspapers, The Texas Gazette and The Mexican Citizen, before throwing himself into the fight for Texas independence. He went on to serve on the Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas from 1836 to 1839 and later in the state legislature. His home once stood on this Wharton site.

Nacogdoches, TX

William Clark, Jr., born in Virginia, came to Texas in 1829 and settled at Nacogdoches in 1840, the same year he built his home on this site. He put his name to the Texas Declaration of Independence and served in the Second Congress of the Republic of Texas in 1837–38. His life spanned the pivotal years when Texas broke from Mexico and governed itself as an independent republic.

Castroville, TX

Henri Castro, a French-born naturalized American, became one of the Republic of Texas's most important empresarios when he won authority in 1842 to plant a colony of Europeans in the rugged country west of San Antonio. Recruiting hundreds of families — many Alsatian — he founded Castroville on the Medina River in 1844, spending his personal fortune to shelter and provision colonists he treated "as though they were his children." He reserved this central block as his own homestead, built a stone house, and even planted an experimental garden to learn which crops the land would bear.

Shelbyville, TX

This spot marks the final clash, on August 14, 1844, of the Regulator–Moderator War, a bitter feud between rival vigilante factions that convulsed Shelby County from 1841 to 1844. The violence claimed many lives and destroyed property until the Republic of Texas sent General James Smith and militia to disarm both sides and restore order. The State of Texas erected the marker in 1936.

Frankfort, KY

Built around 1786 by General James Wilkinson on land once owned by Aaron Burr, this house hosted the first meeting of the legislature after Frankfort became Kentucky's capital in 1793. Later purchased by Major Thomas Love, it served for years as an inn and the social and political heart of the young capital. Its guests included the exiled French prince Louis Philippe—a future king of France—and Aaron Burr himself.

Snyder, TX

After the Civil War, the U.S. Army pushed to secure the West Texas frontier, and Colonel Ranald S. MacKenzie became the central figure in the campaigns against the Comanche and their allies. From forts like Griffin and Concho he blazed supply routes across the Plains toward Palo Duro Canyon, where in 1874 his troops broke the power of the Southern Plains tribes. The trail crossing near Snyder was so well known that the town's 1881 townsite abstracts referenced 'The MacKenzie Trail' as a landmark.

Palestine, TX

In 1837, during the era of the Republic of Texas, frontier guides Daniel McLean and John Sheridan were killed here while shielding settlers from an attack. According to the marker, the two held off their attackers long enough for the settlers to escape, losing their own lives in the process. The site memorializes a violent episode of the early Anglo-Texan frontier.

Harper, TX

In 1863 the family of pioneer preacher Matthew Taylor built a cabin near the source of the Pedernales River, deep in the contested Texas hill country. In August 1864 a band of Kiowas attacked, killing Eli McDonald and a young woman and carrying off several women and children, who were taken as far as Oklahoma before being ransomed. Others survived by taking refuge in the cabin or hiding in a nearby cave.

Odessa, TX

In 1886 the Odessa Townsite Company opened a twenty-room, two-story medical and surgical sanitarium under Dr. R.E. Haughton, a former railroad physician from Indiana, hoping to draw settlers to the raw West Texas plains. The venture failed by 1890, and the building drifted through new lives as a haven for migrant families and a church. When Ector County was formed in 1891, the structure was moved and pressed into service as the county's first courthouse.

Austin, TX

This ground once held the official residence of Mirabeau B. Lamar, second president of the Republic of Texas from 1838 to 1841. Built in 1840 for the head of an independent nation, the house burned in March 1847, only two years after Texas joined the United States. Since 1882 the site has been home to Saint Mary's Academy.

San Antonio, TX

From 1846 to 1868 a plastered-rock building on this site served as the first Presbyterian church in San Antonio, raised by the Reverend John McCullough. In a frontier town short on houses of worship, the modest "Old Adobe" was shared by Protestants of every faith. Its simple construction reflects the improvised beginnings of organized religion in a city only just becoming American.