Columbia (First Capital of Texas)

The capital had a press. Gail Borden's Telegraph and Texas Register had lost its equipment at Harrisburg that April, when Mexican troops threw the press into Buffalo Bayou. Borden got a new press from Cincinnati and resumed publishing at Columbia in the summer of 1836. The first Columbia issue, on August 2, printed the Constitution of the Republic, which few Texans had yet seen. By the end of October the paper had 700 subscribers and the government's printing, and in April 1837 the press went by steamboat to Houston.

What the plaque says

Columbia (First Capital of Texas) In 1836 and 1837, the town of Columbia (now West Columbia) served as the capital of the Republic of Texas. Josiah Hughes Bell, a colonist with Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred, surveyed and platted Columbia in 1824 to serve as a center for shipping activities. In the mid-1830s, Columbia played an important part in the Texas War for Independence, as residents adopted resolutions for sovereignty. In July 1836, ad interim President of the Republic of Texas, David G. Burnet, named Columbia as the location for the country's first capital. He selected the town because it had adequate housing for legislators and possessed a newspaper, the Telegraph and Texas Register. The first Congress of the Republic convened in Columbia, and Sam Houston, the first elected President, was inaugurated here on October 22, 1836. The new government addressed a number of important issues while in Columbia, including the reorganization of the Republic's army and navy; the organization of a post office department and general land office; the establishment of a court system; and the approval of a national seal and national flags. The first Congress adjourned in December 1836, with plans to meet for a second session in the newly built city of Houston. Although Congress began to meet in Houston, the executive branch remained here, conducting official duties until April 1837, when President Houston moved his executive office to his namesake city. Although Columbia no longer served as capital, the legislation passed here in 1836 continued to play a vital role throughout the years of the Republic. Today, Columbia is revered as a historic community and first capital of the Republic of Texas. (2008)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 1.4 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.
• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 10 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.
• Brazos Bend State Park — 16 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 21 mi
  Coastal prairie, salt marsh and bays between Freeport and Christmas Bay, where an auto tour along Big Slough passes wintering geese, ducks and wading birds in the tens of thousands.

More markers nearby

• Columbia Rosenwald School — steps away
• Columbia — steps away
• Charlie Brown — steps away
• Old Columbia Cemetery — 0.2 mi