Bell's Landing

The name outlived the town. Josiah Bell laid out Marion in 1824, yet the settlement was still called Bell's Landing in 1840, and by 1842 it was East Columbia. Plantation sugar and cotton filled its wharves and warehouses, and trading schooners carried goods from the river port to New Orleans. The Houston Tap and Brazoria Railroad reached it in 1859. The war brought a downturn, and by 1890 the town had a weekly newspaper called the Old Capitol. The post office took the East Columbia name in 1927.

What the plaque says

Bell's Landing Founded 1823 as Brazos River landing for Josiah H. Bell's plantation. Townsite of Marion laid out in 1824. Later named East Columbia. Army enlistment point and ferrying dock during Texas Revolution. Key river port and trade center during Republic of Texas days. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 2.1 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.
• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 10 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Brazos Bend State Park — 16 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 20 mi
  Coastal prairie, salt marsh and bays between Freeport and Christmas Bay, where an auto tour along Big Slough passes wintering geese, ducks and wading birds in the tens of thousands.

More markers nearby

• Site of Carry Nation's Hotel — steps away
• Near Site of Dance Gun Shop — steps away
• Near Site of the First Capitol of the Republic of Texas — 1.7 mi
• Columbia Rosenwald School — 1.9 mi