Local History
Texas Republic Era Capital Historical Markers: Washington, Austin, and the Towns That Competed
The Republic of Texas moved its seat of government six times in nine years. Harrisburg, Velasco, Columbia, Houston, Austin, and Washington-on-the-Brazos each held it. Here are the markers, with addresses.
Photo: Clark Van Der Beken / Unsplash. Texas State Capitol, Austin.
You can drive from Surfside Beach to Austin in about four hours. The Republic of Texas took nine years to make that same trip. Between 1836 and 1845 the young nation dragged its government from town to town, and almost every stop left a state historical marker behind. RoadHistorical is a Texas historical preservation platform that maps more than 16,000 of them. Here are the Republic era capital markers you can still pull over and read.
Harrisburg and Velasco: Two Capitals That Lasted Weeks
The first capitals were not chosen. They were wherever the cabinet could sleep that night.
Old Harrisburg was the seat of government from March 22 to April 13, 1836. President David G. Burnet and several of his cabinet stayed near this spot in the home of Jane Harris, widow of the town's founder. Burnet adopted the flag for the Texas Navy here. Three days after the government left, Santa Anna hit the town with 750 soldiers trying to capture Burnet. He missed. His men burned Harrisburg to the ground anyway.
The marker has no street address. Use the coordinates: Old Harrisburg, Houston, TX. Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Velasco came next. After the win at San Jacinto, Burnet moved the capital down to the mouth of the Brazos. Texas and Mexico signed the Treaty of Velasco here on May 14, 1836, ending the fighting. The same ground had already seen the Battle of Velasco in 1832, when 112 Texans took the Mexican garrison after nine hours under fire.
The marker stands at Velasco, Surfside, TX. Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Columbia: Where the Elected Government Actually Started
In July 1836 Burnet picked Columbia, now West Columbia, for a practical reason. It had enough housing for legislators and it had a newspaper, the Telegraph and Texas Register.
Columbia (First Capital of Texas) tells you what got done in three months. The first Congress of the Republic convened here. Sam Houston took the oath as first elected president on October 22, 1836. That Congress reorganized the army and navy and stood up a post office department and a general land office. It built a court system. It approved a national seal and national flags. Then it adjourned in December, planning to meet next in a city that barely existed yet.
Read it at 122 W. Brazos, West Columbia, TX. Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Near Site of the First Capitol of the Republic of Texas marks the building itself. Leman Kelsey put up a story-and-a-half clapboard structure around 1833, and it became one of two buildings housing the new government. Houston took office here. Stephen F. Austin took the job of secretary of state here, and the work broke his health. He died in Columbia on December 27, 1836. The 1900 storm destroyed the original capitol. The replica you'll see went up in 1976 and 1977.
It's at 142 N. 14th St., West Columbia, TX. Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Houston City: A Capital of Mud, Tents, and Cabins
Congress voted on November 30, 1836 to make Houston the temporary capital. At the time it was a small townsite at the head of Buffalo Bayou navigation. Congress bought a promise.
Houston City, Republic of Texas does not flatter the place. President Houston and his government arrived on April 1, 1837 to a city of mud, tents, and cabins. Their quarters weren't finished, so Congress pushed its opening session back to May 1. The capitol was a two-story plantation style house with columned porches. It hosted Indian treaties, diplomatic negotiations, and legislative sessions. No church had been built yet, so it hosted Sunday services too.
The city grew into the role fast. That first muddy April brought a San Jacinto anniversary celebration with a parade, a reception, and a ball. On December 5, 1837 a group of war heroes founded the Texas Philosophical Society, the Republic's first learned organization. A year later Houston put on a powdered wig, dressed himself up as George Washington, and gave a three hour farewell address. Mirabeau B. Lamar took the oath the same day, December 10, 1838.
Lamar moved the capital to Austin the next year. The marker has no street address, so use the coordinates: Houston City marker, Houston, TX. Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Washington-on-the-Brazos and Austin: A Cannon Settled It
Washington-on-the-Brazos started in 1822 as a ferry crossing where the La Bahia Road met the Brazos River. Enterprising locals landed the Convention of 1836 by throwing in a free meeting hall. So Texans signed the Declaration of Independence in an unfinished building owned by a gunsmith. The town lost the government on March 17, 1836 when the Mexican army advanced and everyone ran in the Runaway Scrape. It got the government back from 1842 to 1845. Barrington, the home of last president Anson Jones, still stands in the park.
The marker is on Park Road 12, Washington-on-the-Brazos, TX. Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Austin got the job in 1839. Edwin Waller laid out a 196 block grid, fourteen by fourteen, cut by a broad avenue running from the Colorado River up to Capitol Square. That's Congress Avenue. His plan set aside four public squares, and one of them still carries a marker at 900 Guadalupe St., Austin, TX.
The Archive War explains why Austin kept the title. In 1842 Mexican armies took San Antonio and looked ready to take Austin. Residents fled in what people called The Breakup. Sam Houston, then president and sitting in Galveston, ordered the national archives moved out. A local Archive Committee buried them instead. Houston's men came back and started loading the papers before dawn on December 30, 1842. Angelina Eberly, an innkeeper and one of the few women still in town, caught them in the dark. She ran to the city cannon at Congress Avenue and Pecan Street, now 6th, and fired at the wagons. The 26 men got away. About 68 citizens chased them with the cannon in tow and took the records back about 20 miles out, without a shot fired at anyone. The archives stayed. So the president and Congress came back in 1845, and Austin has been the capital ever since.
Read the whole account at 1201 Brazos St., Austin, TX. Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
How RoadHistorical Finds These Markers
Discovery Mode does the work while you drive. Turn it on and the app notifies you when you pass a marker. The Harrisburg marker surfaces on your way through east Houston, not six months later on a map you forgot to check.
The AI Tour Guide handles what the plaque leaves out. Ask why Burnet chose Columbia, or what happened to Velasco after the Republic, and you get an answer at the pullout. Offline mode matters on this particular route. The stretch between Washington-on-the-Brazos and West Columbia loses cell coverage in places, and the app keeps working without it.
Start Discovering Texas History Today
RoadHistorical is free to download on iPhone and Android. Download it here and turn on Discovery Mode before your next drive. Android users can download RoadHistorical from Google Play.
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