Falls of the Brazos River

Before settlers arrived the falls belonged to other routes. The Handbook of Texas says that until 1829 the falls area had no permanent Native settlement but served as hunting ground for Waco, Tawakoni and Anadarko peoples, whom the stronger Comanches attacked from the north. The Cherokees arrived in the early 1830s, after internal wars in 1829 and 1830 had weakened the others. The first Americans came in 1819, sent by Dr. James Long to build a trading house, and did not stay. Sterling C. Robertson began bringing settlers in 1834 and 1835.

What the plaque says

Falls of the Brazos River When Anglo-Americans began to settle in Texas, the falls of the Brazos were located 2 miles southwest of here. At that time, the water fell about 10 feet over a rocky ledge. The falls served the Indians and early settlers as a traill landmark, meeting point, and compsite. In 1834 colonizer Sterling C. Robertson (1785-1842) established the town of Sarahville De Viesca at the fall line of the west bank of the Brazos, but it was abandoned in 1836 because of Indian hostilities. Later renamed Ft. Milam, the settlement lasted only a few more years. It was followed by the town of Bucksnort, begun in the 1840s on the east side of the river. The falls also formed a natural fording place for frontier travel; the rocky stream bed was the only hard-bottom crossing of the Brazos within 200 miles of the coast. The rapids marked the limit of the river's 19th century steamboat traffic as well. Organized in 1850, Falls County was named for this distinctive landmark. Marlin became the county seat in 1851, and Bucksnort soon disappeared. The Brazos River changed course in 1866, moving the Fall line to the present site and lowering the rapids to about 2 feet. Today a county park is located along both sides of the river at the falls. (1975)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Armstrong Browning Library — 24 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.
• Calvert — 24 mi
  A railroad cotton town of 1868 on State Highway 6 that claimed the largest cotton gin in the world and elected Black men to county and state office during Reconstruction.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 24 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 24 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.

More markers nearby

• Fort Milam — 1.5 mi
• Bucksnort — 2.3 mi
• Old Settlers and Veterans Association of Falls County — 3.7 mi
• Rev. Nelson T. Denson and Marlin Missionary Baptist Church — 3.9 mi