Fort Anahuac

Little of Fort Anahuac survives, and the reasons are as interesting as the fort. When the garrison left in July 1832, soldiers dismantled it. A fire that November gutted the wooden parts, and neighbors carried bricks home for fireplaces and foundations. Troops came back in 1835 but the fort was never used again. Erosion after the Trinity was rechanneled dropped the southwest redoubt, called Fort Davis for Bradburn, into the water. The county made the site a park in 1946 and had the rubble buried, and no full archaeological study has been made.

What the plaque says

Fort Anahuac Known as Perry's Point until 1825, Anahuac was a port of entry for early Texas colonists. In 1830 the Mexican government established a military post here to collect customs duties and to enforce the law of April 6, 1830, which curtailed further Anglo-American colonization. Situated on a high bluff at the mouth of the Trinity River, Fort Anahuac controlled access to East Texas settlements. Two 18-pound guns topped the 7-foot thick brick walls of the bastion. Four-foot thick walls protected the adjacent barracks, and an underground tunnel led to a nearby powder magazine. Col. Juan Davis Bradburn, commander of the Anahuac garrison, angered Texas colonists by conscripting labor and supplies to construct the fort and by failing to control his disorderly troops. In 1832 he unjustly imprisoned William B. Travis, Patrick C. Jack, and other settlers here. When he refused to release the men, armed conflict erupted between Texas and Mexican forces. The confrontation here, which also sparked fighting at Velasco and adoption of the Turtle Bayou resolutions, resulted in Bradburn's dismissal and the removal of Mexican troops from the post. Today the ruins of Fort Anahuac are a physical reminder of events that kindled the drive for Texas independence. (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site — 24 mi
  The 1,200 acres of coastal prairie and marsh where the Texas Revolution ended in eighteen minutes, and the 567-foot shaft of fossil-studded limestone that has stood over them since 1939.
• Space Center Houston — 28 mi
  The visitor center of NASA's Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake, with flown capsules, a shuttle replica riding a 747, and tram tours to Mission Control and a Saturn V.

More markers nearby

• Robert McAlpin Williamson — steps away
• Juan Davis Bradburn — steps away
• William Barret Travis — steps away
• On this Site First Known as Perry's Point — steps away