Austin County

Austin County's antebellum growth was built on slavery. Settlers from the upper South kept arriving with enslaved people, and the slave population rose from 447 in 1840 to 1,274 in 1847, when it was more than 47 percent of all residents, and to 3,914, or 39 percent, by 1860. That year 324 slaveholders made it one of only seventeen Texas counties averaging more than ten enslaved people per owner. The census counted seven free Black residents in 1847, perhaps members of the Allen family, two of whom had helped evacuate and burn San Felipe in 1836.

What the plaque says

Austin County A part of the grant to Stephen F. Austin in 1821, created a municipality under the Mexican government in 1828, became a county of the Republic of Texas, March 17, 1836. Named in honor of Stephen Fuller Austin, 1793-1836, pioneer empresario, founder of Anglo-American Texas. San Felipe de Austin, capital of Austin's colony, 1824-1836, seat of provisional government of Texas, 1835-1836. County seat, 1837-1848, Bellville, since.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 35 mi
  Two park units on an 11,000-acre lake between Austin and College Station, joined by a thirteen-mile trailway for hikers, cyclists and riders with primitive camps along the way.

More markers nearby

• Original Site of St. Mary's Episcopal Church — 0.7 mi
• Early History of Bellville Methodist Church — 0.8 mi
• Bellville — 0.8 mi
• First National Bank of Bellville — 0.8 mi