Cameron County

The county was far larger when it began. The legislature created it on February 12, 1848, with 3,308 square miles that later supplied parts of Hidalgo, Willacy, Kenedy and Brooks counties. An August election chose officers, and organization was complete by September 11. The first seat was Santa Rita, five miles downstream from Fort Brown and believed to be the earliest English-speaking town in the area. A December election reopened the question, and after intense effort by Charles Stillman, voters picked his new town of Brownsville, which the Handbook dates to January 13, 1849.

What the plaque says

Cameron County Created February 21, 1848; From Nueces County; Organized August 7, 1848; Named in honor of Ewen Cameron, 1811-1843; Captain in the Mier Expedition; Shot at Queretaro; County Seat, Santa Rita 1848-1849; Brownsville, since the earliest battles of the Mexican War, and the last battle of the Civil War were fought in this county

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stillman House Museum — 3.4 mi
  The 1850 Greek Revival house of Charles Stillman, who laid out Brownsville in 1848 beside the army's Fort Brown, and for a century the home of the Treviño family.
• Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park — 4.1 mi
  A flat coastal prairie north of Brownsville where Taylor's army and Arista's Army of the North fought the first major battle of the Mexican War on May 8, 1846, now interpreted from both sides.
• Port Isabel Lighthouse State Historic Site — 21 mi
  A 72-foot brick tower finished in 1852 for the Brazos Santiago shipping lane, dark from 1905 until a reproduction lens was lit in 2022, and the only Texas lighthouse open to the public.
• Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge — 22 mi
  A coastal refuge set up in 1946 for wintering redhead ducks, with 417 bird species recorded and, by the Fish and Wildlife Service's account, the largest ocelot population in the United States.

More markers nearby

• Rancho Viejo — 2.6 mi
• Hebrew Cemetery — 2.8 mi
• J.T. Canales — 3.1 mi
• Cameron County — 3.2 mi