Fort St. Louis

The Spanish reached the ruins at the end of April 1689 under Alonso de León, guided by Jean Gery, a Frenchman who had left La Salle's people. The fort and five buildings were wrecked, and three bodies lay there, one a woman shot in the back with an arrow. A priest said a funeral service, then the soldiers burned what stood and buried the cannon. A 1936 plan for a granite stone at the site was cancelled after a dispute with the landowner. The site is private ranch land, so do not look for a way in.

What the plaque says

Fort St. Louis Thirteen miles southeast of Inez is located the site of Fort St. Louis. First French settlement in Texas attempted by Rene Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle in 1685. Devastated by the Karankawa Indians, burned by members of the Alonso De Leon Expedition in 1689. On its remains the Spaniards constructed Presidio de Nuestra Senora de la Bahia del Espiritu Santo, Marquis of Aguayo and Father Fray Agustin Patron, O.F. M. In 1722 as a protection for the mission of Nuestra Senora del Espiritu Santo de Zuniga for the civilizing and Christianizing of the Indian tribes of the vicinity moved to Mission Valley on the Guadalupe River near the present Victoria in 1726; moved finally to Santa Dorotea in Goliad near the San Antonio River in 1749.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 13 mi
  Victoria College's museum of thirteen thousand years on the middle Texas coast, from Clovis hunters and Karankawa potters to La Salle's lost Fort St. Louis and the first ranches.
• De León Plaza — 15 mi
  The central plaza of Guadalupe Victoria, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas, founded by Martín De León in 1824 and taken from his family after 1836.
• Half Moon Reef Lighthouse and Linnville — 21 mi
  The last screw-pile lighthouse of the Texas coast, brought ashore at Port Lavaca, a town founded by refugees from Linnville, the port Buffalo Hump's Comanches burned in August 1840.
• Fannin Battleground State Historic Site — 31 mi
  The open prairie east of Goliad where Fannin's retreating column formed a square short of the Coleto Creek timber on March 19, 1836, and surrendered the next day.

More markers nearby

• Saint Joseph Catholic Church — steps away
• Saint Joseph Catholic Cemetery — 0.3 mi
• Site of The Johnston-Huston Duel — 7.7 mi
• Site of Camp Independence — 8.5 mi