Garrison Greenwood

The fort Greenwood helped found was a stockade and blockhouse on the public square of a town called Houston, two miles west of present Palestine. Capt. Michael Costley's ranger company built it, and it was finished before May 19, 1836, covering an acre of the townsite. Tradition says the rangers raised the blockhouse and the settlers the stockade. It guarded the frontier from 1836 to 1839 and was never attacked, though raids struck settlements nearby. It was abandoned in 1841 or 1842, and in 1857 John H. Reagan bought the old site for his home.

What the plaque says

Garrison Greenwood (December 19, 1799 - October 18, 1859) A ranger in Republic of Texas, Greenwood left Illinois to avoid Indian Wars. Arrived in Texas (then part of Mexico) in 1833 with wagon train of Baptist Daniel Parker. In 1835 he helped found Fort Houston (in present Anderson County); set up a Ranger post on Trinity River to fight Indians. In 1836 he led local settlers fleeing to Louisiana in front of Santa Anna's army in "Runaway Scrape." Spent rest of life as Texas farmer. Had 14 children. Recorded - 1968

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hancock Springs Park — 1.6 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.
• Colorado Bend State Park — 17 mi
  Old ranch country on the Colorado above Lake Buchanan, where a spring-fed creek drops 70 feet over fern-covered travertine at Gorman Falls.
• Inks Lake State Park — 25 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 26 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.

More markers nearby

• James Jackson Beeman — steps away
• Walter P. Acker — steps away
• James S. Gillett — steps away
• Thomas Pratt — steps away