Briscoe County

Andrew Briscoe opened a store at Anahuac in 1835 and was arrested by Mexican officials for trading goods with unpaid duties, then freed when William B. Travis and his volunteers drove out the commander. After the revolution he turned to railroads. In 1839 he planned a line from Harrisburg to the Brazos, and about two miles were graded before the project was abandoned. His 1840 paper "California Railroad" laid out a route from Harrisburg to San Diego, and in 1841 he chartered the Harrisburg Railroad and Trading Company. He died in New Orleans in 1849.

What the plaque says

Briscoe County Formed from Bexar Territory. Created August 21, 1876. Organized March 15, 1892. Named for Andrew Briscoe 1810-1849. Defender of Texas liberty at the Battle of Concepcion, the capture of Bexar and the Battle of San Jacinto. Chief Justice of Harris County. Silverton is the county seat.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Caprock Canyons State Park & Trailway — 15 mi
  Red canyons below the Caprock escarpment where the Texas State Bison Herd, descended from calves Mary Ann Goodnight saved in 1878, has right of way on the park roads.
• Bob Wills Museum — 24 mi
  The old Turkey school, now holding Bob Wills's boots, hats, his father's fiddle and his barbershop tools, in the cotton town that fills each April for Bob Wills Day.

More markers nearby

• Miner Crawford — steps away
• First Methodist Church of Silverton — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Silverton — 0.3 mi
• Site of Celtic Post Office — 8.2 mi