Historical Marker

Fort Houston

Palestine, Anderson County · Texas
Erected 1936

A raid on Parker's Fort on May 19, 1836, left five people dead and five taken captive, according to the Old Fort Parker site's own history, which says twenty-one escaped and traveled to Fort Houston near what is now Palestine. The Handbook of Texas adds that settlers fled to the fort during Santa Anna's 1836 incursion. On October 14, 1838, General Thomas J. Rusk reached it, two days before the fight at the Kickapoo village. A 1940 county history says Dr. James Hunter came here that year as the first practicing physician in what is now Anderson County.

What the plaque says

Fort Houston (site one-fourth mile south) A stockade and blockhouse of the Republic of Texas. Built in 1835-1836 to protect settlers who founded Houston, a pioneer town, now in Anderson County. Friendly Indians would come to trade at the site, but wary settlers often slept inside the 25-foot-square blockhouse, built of heavy logs. Trappers bought supplies there and men from Houston formed one of the first Ranger units in Texas. The fort defended a large area of the frontier, 1836-1839, but it was abandoned about 1841. The site later became part of home of John H. Reagan, Texas Statesman. A fort and stockade built about 1836 on the public square of the town of Houston (then in Houston County), as a protection against the Indians, by order of General Sam Houston, Commander-in-Chief of the Texan armies. The town was abandoned in 1846 for Palestine, the new seat of Anderson County, the fort about 1841. The site is now a part of the historic home of John H. Reagan, which is called Fort Houston. (1969)

Where it stands

31.73961, -95.65671 · Directions

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