Cooks Point

The man behind the log store was a planter. Gabriel Jackson came from Kentucky to Robertson's colony in December 1833 and built a large plantation in the Brazos bottoms, where, the Handbook of Texas says, he held 100 slaves. At the crossroads his two-story log house traded with settlers on the ground floor and with local Indians. The crossing itself joined the colonial road from Independence and Washington-on-the-Brazos to the Old San Antonio Road. A post office ran from 1874 until 1913, when the Houston and Texas Central arrived.

What the plaque says

Cooks Point Founded about 1840 where colonial road from southeast crossed San Antonio Road. Settler Gabriel Jackson had two-story log cabin-trading post here. Community was named for Silas L. Cooke, who surveyed much land in this vicinity. It is now a thriving rural village. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum — 15 mi
  The library of the forty-first president on the Texas A&M campus, opened in 1997, where George and Barbara Bush and their daughter Robin are buried in a family plot on the grounds.
• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 23 mi
  Two park units on an 11,000-acre lake between Austin and College Station, joined by a thirteen-mile trailway for hikers, cyclists and riders with primitive camps along the way.
• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 25 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.
• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 28 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.

More markers nearby

• Near Homesite of Judge Andrew S. Broaddus — steps away
• Elizabeth Chapel Methodist Church — 1.8 mi
• Fort Tenoxtitlan — 1.8 mi
• Cooks Point United Methodist Church — 2.0 mi