City of Matagorda

In the year ending June 30, 1859, James H. Selkirk's warehouse alone shipped 6,264 bales of cotton, 795 barrels of molasses, 390 hogsheads of sugar and six bales of wool, 1,825 bales more than the year before. The cotton and cane came from plantations worked by enslaved people. In 1851 the county reported 2,366 residents, 1,362 of them enslaved and four of them free people of color, and steamships left the bay for New Orleans twice a week. The plaque calls Matagorda an early cultural center; its ledgers show what the port moved.

What the plaque says

City of Matagorda Projected site of a town in 1826. Founded in 1829 with Stephen F. Austin, Elias R. Wightman, Hosea H. League and Ira Ingram as proprietors. Third largest town in Texas in 1834. Incorporated January 28, 1839, county seat of Matagorda County, 1837-1894. Badly wrecked by storms in 1854 and 1875. An early cultural center of Texas as evidenced by schools, churches and press.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 29 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Matagorda Island — 37 mi
  A 38-mile barrier island reached only by boat from Port O'Connor, with a lighthouse of 1852, the ghosts of two towns and a fort, and no water, power or cars.

More markers nearby

• Christ Church — steps away
• Matagorda Methodist Church — steps away
• Matagorda Lodge No. 7, A.F. & A.M. — steps away
• St. Peter's Baptist Church — 0.3 mi