Brenham

Emancipation made Brenham a center for freed people. Washington County held 7,941 enslaved people in 1860, and the Freedmen's Bureau set up an agency in Brenham because so many formerly enslaved people lived around it. A large freedmen's school followed. Camptown became the town's first Black neighborhood, with a Black church organized there by 1872. The Handbook of Texas says Brenham's tax-supported school system, begun in 1875 and the first in Texas, included a school for Black students. Juneteenth observances began in the late 1870s and were revived in 1983.

What the plaque says

Brenham Founded 1843. Named for Richard Fox Brenham (1810-1843), Republic of Texas patriot. Railhead and supply center in Civil War. Blinn Memorial College founded here, 1883. Center for farming, trade and manufacturing. Home of famous annual Maifest, colorful folk tradition. Historical sites marked. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 12 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 18 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 18 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.
• Round Top and Festival Hill — 20 mi
  A German village on the old La Bahía Road, named for a house tower, with an 1867 stone church, a Fourth of July kept since 1851 and a concert hall a pianist built without blueprints.

More markers nearby

• Rosedale Nursery — 0.4 mi
• 100th Anniversary Brenham "Banner-Press" — 1.0 mi
• Germania Mutual Aid Association — 1.1 mi
• William H. Watson — 1.3 mi