Local History
Texas River Crossing Historical Markers: Fords, Ferries, and the Water That Divided Everything
Before bridges, a Texas river was a wall. Five real historical markers at the fords and ferries that decided where towns, armies, and cattle trails went.
Photo: Allison Jeffers / Unsplash. A Texas river running through green bottomland.
You come over a rise on SH 21 northeast of Caldwell and the highway drops toward the Brazos. The bridge takes a few seconds. For most of the 1800s, that same water cost you a ferryman, a toll, and a wait. Texas has more than 16,000 official historical markers, and a lot of them stand where a river used to stop everybody cold. RoadHistorical is a Texas historical preservation platform that tells you when one of those markers is coming up. Here are five river crossing markers worth pulling over for.
Beason's Crossing: Where Sam Houston Almost Made His Stand
Benjamin Beason arrived in 1822 as one of Stephen F. Austin's original 300 colonists. He picked a spot beside a well-used ford on the Colorado River. He and his wife Elizabeth built a house big enough to run as an inn. Then came a gristmill, a sawmill, a gin, and a ferry.
By spring 1836 that little settlement sat in the worst possible place. Sam Houston camped 1,500 troops on the east bank. A Mexican army under General Joaquin Ramirez y Sesma closed in from the west. Houston picked the site on purpose, since it sat at the edge of the most settled part of Texas. He is said to have declared that on the Colorado he would make his stand.
He did not. On March 26 he pulled the army back toward the Brazos. A detachment of his own men burned Beason's Crossing to the ground hours before Sesma arrived. The marker went up in 1993 for the Sam Houston bicentennial, and it stands in Beason's Park just east of the river bridge.
Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Lynch's Ferry and Moseley's Ferry: The Toll Booths of Early Texas
Nathaniel Lynch was another of Austin's Old Three Hundred. In 1822 he set up a ferry where Buffalo Bayou meets the San Jacinto River. The marker records the going rate: 25 cents for a man and horse, 4 cents a head for cattle. High water cost more, because high water could kill you.
In March and April of 1836, families running from the Mexican army piled up at that crossing. By April 2 the prairie was covered with wagons, horses, mules, tents, and baggage. Santa Anna wanted to trap the Texan retreat at the ferry. Nineteen days later he lost the Battle of San Jacinto a short walk from it. The Lynchburg Ferry still runs at the same site, motor driven now, and the 1969 marker sits in Juan Seguin Park.
4411 Independence Pkwy, La Porte, TX
Inland, the Old San Antonio Road ran up against the Brazos and stopped. Michael Boren started a public ferry there around 1846. Daniel Moseley took it over in 1849, and his family ran it until 1868. Burleson County commissioners licensed the ferrymen and set the tolls, which tells you how much local government cared about who controlled the water.
Ferrymen kept hauling travelers, livestock, and freight across that spot until 1912. That year the Houston & Texas Central built a railroad bridge, and the ferry business died. A highway bridge spans the Brazos there today, and the 1975 marker stands on SH 21 about ten miles northeast of Caldwell.
SH 21 at the Brazos River, Caldwell, TX
Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Horsehead Crossing: The Ford Named for What Died There
Horsehead Crossing got its name from the horse and mule skulls that lined the banks of the Pecos through the 1800s. Raiders drove stolen animals up the Comanche War Trail across brutal dry country. The animals reached the river, drank too deeply, and died. Their skulls marked the ford for whoever came next.
After the 1848 California gold strike, that grim landmark turned into a critical stop on the trail west. It offered the first water in roughly 75 miles for anyone coming from the east. Travelers either turned northwest along the river or crossed and pushed southwest toward Comanche Springs at Fort Stockton.
The Butterfield Overland Mail made it a stop in 1858 and built an adobe stage stand and a ferry. Both shut down in 1861 when mail service ended. Federal forces watched the crossing during the Civil War. Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving blazed their cattle trail to this point in 1866 and turned upriver. Railroads finished the crossing off in the early 1880s. The marker sits on FM 11 northwest of Girvin, and you'll want a full tank.
Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Los Ebanos: The Only Hand-Pulled Ferry Left on a U.S. Border
Most of these crossings are memories with a plaque. Los Ebanos is not. On the Rio Grande in Hidalgo County, a ferry still crosses the river the old way. Crew members pull it across by hand on a rope.
The ford underneath it is ancient. Spanish explorers and colonists under Jose de Escandon recorded using it in the 1740s. A salt trail ran from here to El Sal del Rey, 40 miles northeast. Mexican War troops crossed in 1846. Texas Rangers chasing cattle rustlers crossed in 1874. Smugglers used it constantly, and business was especially good during Prohibition.
Federal officials formally established the ferry and its inspection station in 1950. The name comes from the ebony trees on the bank, and the crossing still runs in their shade. The 1974 marker calls it the only government-licensed, hand-pulled ferry on any boundary of the United States.
Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
How RoadHistorical Finds These Markers
River crossing markers are the hardest kind to catch. They sit at the bottom of a grade, right before a bridge, usually with nowhere obvious to pull over. You pass them at 70 miles an hour. Discovery Mode solves that. It notifies you as you drive past a marker, so you know it's there before the exit is behind you.
The AI Tour Guide handles the questions the plaque can't. Ask why Houston abandoned the Colorado, or what a ferry toll of 25 cents was actually worth in 1836. Offline mode matters out here too. FM 11 near Girvin has almost no cell coverage, and the app keeps working anyway.
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.
Keep exploring
