Fort Travis

The federal government bought ninety-seven acres at the tip of Bolivar Peninsula in 1898 for $36,000, and the post passed to the coast artillery on October 25, 1899. By 1943 it held twenty-seven buildings, among them barracks for enlisted men, officers and noncommissioned officers, and a mess hall. German prisoners of war were interned here in World War II. The army sold the reservation as surplus in 1949, with the stipulation that the batteries open to the public in hurricane emergencies. It became an official civil-defense shelter in 1960, and Galveston County bought it for a park in 1973.

What the plaque says

Fort Travis In early 1836, soon after Texas declared independence from Mexico, Republic of Texas President David Burnet dispatched Colonel Ed Harcourt to Galveston Island to erect a fort. Using army recruits and slave labor Harcourt built an octagonal earth and timber fortification armed with six and twelve-pound gun mounts appropriated from the Texas Navy vessel CAYUGA. Named Fort Travis in honor of William B. Travis, famous defender of the Alamo, it was located at the east end of the island. After high winds damaged the fort in 1837 the site was converted into a gun battery called Fort point, its present name. In 1898-99, with the beginning of Federal development of the Port of Galveston, a second Fort Travis was established across Galveston Bay at Bolivar Point near the former site of a Civil War Confederate fortification called Fort Green. Two batteries, named Davis and Ernst, were completed in 1899 and a third, named Kimble, completed in 1922. Coastal defense facilities were added to the fort during World Wars I and II. Fort Travis was decommissioned and sold as war surplus in 1949. Besides its obvious military uses, Fort Travis also served as a refuge from hurricanes and as a Civil Defense shelter for area residents. Incise on back: Funding for this replacement marker was provided through a generous grant from the Hoblitzelle Foundation and the Texas Historical Foundation. (1993)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — 4.5 mi
  An iron barque launched in Aberdeen in 1877 that called at Galveston twice, ended up smuggling in the Adriatic, and was bought back from a Greek scrapyard to sail again from Pier 22.
• 1892 Bishop's Palace — 4.7 mi
  Nicholas Clayton's stone house on Broadway for the railroad lawyer Walter Gresham, later home to Galveston's Catholic bishops and one of the most admired Victorian houses in the country.
• The Strand — 4.7 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 5.1 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.

More markers nearby

• Bolivar Point — steps away
• Point Bolivar — steps away
• SS Selma — 2.4 mi
• Galveston: Gateway to Texas — 2.5 mi