Brenham Fire Department

The plaque says two volunteer companies formed in 1867 were also military companies, meant to suppress lawlessness until Reconstruction ended in 1874. It does not say whose. Black freedmen, German immigrants and white Unionists then held county politics as Republicans, and white violence pushed back. The Handbook of Texas records a Klan murder in 1869, raids on Black polling places in 1884, and in 1886 stolen ballot boxes and three Black leaders lynched. Lynching records list three Black men, Shed Felder, Alfred Jones and Ephraim Jones, hanged by a mob at Brenham that December on a murder accusation.

What the plaque says

Brenham Fire Department Two volunteer organizations, Brenham Hook and Ladder Co. and the Fire Protection Co., were started May 28, 1867, ostensibly to fight fires. In reality they were also military companies to suppress lawlessness until in 1874 Reconstruction ended. In 1875 a fire alarm bell and in 1880 a 50-gallon cistern were installed on courthouse square. The second steam fire engine in Texas was purchased in 1878. In 1881, firemen sponsored the First Annual Brenham Maifest, then continued it 60 years. In 1884 they built for the event a pavilion in Fireman's Park. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 11 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

• Site of Masonic Academy — 0.3 mi
• First Baptist Church — 0.4 mi
• Texas Confederate County Commissioners Court — 0.4 mi
• Washington County, C.S.A. — 0.4 mi