Fort Bend

The blockhouse has been described as a "little log shanty." Austin is said to have chosen the spot, and the bend gave one of the better fords of the Brazos, which made the post important in 1836. A rear guard under Wyly Martin briefly held the crossing that April; once Martin was maneuvered out, Santa Anna took part of his army across here. After San Jacinto, troops under Thomas Jefferson Green, pursuing Vicente Filisola's retreating forces, halted at Fort Bend in mid-May. Richmond became the county seat in 1838 and soon absorbed the older settlement.

What the plaque says

Fort Bend Built in November, 1821 by William Little, William Smithers, Charles Beard, Joseph Polly and Henry Holster. Its name was given to the county when created in 1837.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• 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.
• 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

• Site of the Home of Mirabeau B. Lamar — steps away
• Wyly Martin — 0.3 mi
• Constantine W. Buckley — 0.7 mi
• Erastus ("Deaf") Smith — 0.7 mi