Booker T. Washington Park

Locals have long called this ground Comanche Crossing, the Handbook of Texas says, and Juneteenth here grew into a three-day reunion run by the Nineteenth of June Organization, where families recall life under slavery and since. The park once held thirty acres, now twenty after Lake Mexia rose. Ralph Long, reportedly brought to Limestone County as a child, was one of nine Black delegates at the 1868-69 constitutional convention. Giles Cotton, most likely enslaved by the Stroud family, was elected from Robertson, Leon and Freestone counties and served in the Legislature from 1870 to 1873.

What the plaque says

Booker T. Washington Park Set aside by deed in 1898 as a permanent site for celebrating June 19th-- the anniversary of the 1865 emancipation of slaves in Texas. It was 2.5 miles south of this site that slaves of this area first heard their freedom announced. Limestone County in the 1860's-- era of initial celebrations here--had many able Negro leaders. It sent to the Texas constitutional convention of 1866 one of its Negro citizens, Ralph Long. From among people who lived in this locality at the time of emancipation came Negro legislators Giles Cotton, Dave Medlock and Sheppard Mullins. Even before land was dedicated for the park here, this was site of annual celebration on June 19th. For many years the honorable Ralph Long was the featured orator, speaking at times from bed of a wagon parked in the shade. As many as 20,000 often gathered for the occasion. On July 7, 1912, the 19th of June Organization was chartered, to administer the park and perpetuate regional history. The Negro people of Texas have shown outstanding initiative in fields of civic leadership, education, culture and business. In 1860 they numbered 187,921; in 1960 there were 1,187,125 Negros in the State. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site — 2.9 mi
  Where Limestone County Confederate veterans gathered each summer from 1888, later a water supplier in the Mexia oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site on the Navasota River.
• Old Fort Parker — 7.1 mi
  A rebuilt 1830s family stockade near the Navasota River, where a May 1836 attack killed men of the Parker settlement and took five captives, among them nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 13 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.

More markers nearby

• Joseph W. Stubenrauch — 5.7 mi
• Mexia Oil Boom — 6.0 mi
• Civilian Conservation Corps at Fort Parker State Park — 6.2 mi
• One Half Mile North to the Site Once Occupied by Trinity University — 6.5 mi