Early Courthouse Square

The 1889 shoot-out ended a struggle for power between White Democrats, the Jaybirds, and the Woodpeckers, officials elected with the Black vote for the Republican ticket since Reconstruction. In September 1888 a Jaybird mass meeting in Richmond ordered certain Black residents to leave the county within ten hours, and they did. After the gunfight of August 16, 1889, and Governor Lawrence S. Ross's mediation, every Woodpecker official was removed or resigned. In October the Jaybirds formed an association to keep White control of the county, and it dominated Fort Bend politics for about seventy years.

What the plaque says

Early Courthouse Square This square was deeded in 1838 to Fort Bend County by Robert E. Handy and William Lusk, founders of Richmond. It was site of 1850-1871 and 1888-1909 courthouses. Completed here 1888 was a two-story brick Victorian courthouse with bell tower and clock -- the pride of city and county. Jaybird-Woodpecker political feud culminated here in a bloody shoot-out in 1889, ending a post-Civil War era of conflict. County offices moved in 1909 to new courthouse on Jackson Street. This became center of recreation for next 30 years. City Hall was built here in 1940. (1973)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazos Bend State Park — 17 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.
• The Menil Collection — 24 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 24 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.
• Rothko Chapel — 24 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.

More markers nearby

• Jane Long Boarding House — steps away
• Constantine W. Buckley — steps away
• Morton Lodge No. 72, A. F. & A. M. — steps away
• Site of the Home of Randal Jones — steps away