Thursday, February 24, 2011

Capitol of Texas Park

 Hat Tip : David and Randa Crain


According to the information posted by Mike Cox in Texas Tales, the first government of the Republic of Texas was located on either side of the road on Highway 35 right where the little park now exists in front of the Walgreen  Pharmacy in West Columbia. The developers donated this 337- by 35-foot strip when excavation work done in 2007 resulted in the discovery of an old cistern and other archeological evidence that this was the location of the first capitol of Texas. Dedicated on April 17, 2009, the park features a path connecting a series of granite monuments telling the history of the area. It is landscaped with numerous species of native plants.
A very well built clapboard mercantile building, the structure now replicated was unique among the rude cabins existing in 1824 in Columbia (later West Columbia). After the Capitol was moved to Houston and subsequently to Austin, and time went on in the republic and during early statehood these two buildings, where the Senate and House of Representatives of the infant country had first met became forgotten. The other building was later torn down. A man did photograph the remaining one in 1897 and that is the only surviving photographic evidence. The Daughters of the Republic, saviors of the Alamo, was just about to acquire the remaining building when the 1900 Galveston storm destoyed it.
In 1932, the DRT placed a granite historical marker at the site. Seven years after that, the area was cleared and a series of businesses went up along the street.

Those structures were razed in 2007 to make way for a new chain drug store. When the existing pavement was ripped up, workers discovered an old cistern and assorted artifacts. Boyd’s firm got hired to do an archeological survey.

With help from the Brazosport Archeological Society, Prewitt and Associates spent a week that December looking for traces of the government structures. Boyd said more archeological work remains to be done in the area, but that will have to wait on funding.
I photographed these monuments last Fall.You can click on them twice to view a larger version.