General John Augustus Hulen

Hulen's civilian work was railroads. He was passenger agent in Houston, then president and receiver of the Trinity and Brazos Valley, and from 1930 to 1941 vice president of the Fort Worth and Denver and head of the Burlington-Rock Island and Houston Belt and Terminal lines. He sat on the Texas Tech board and the Texas Centennial Commission. In 1940 he bought about thirteen acres on Palacios Bay, where he died in 1957. The Handbook puts his burial in Palacios; a newspaper account of the funeral puts it in Houston.

What the plaque says

General John Augustus Hulen General John Augustus Hulen Missourian John Augustus Hulen (1871-1957), citizen soldier and railroad executive, came to Texas with his family in the 1870s. He later attended Virginia's Staunton Military Academy and returned to Texas. He joined a militia unit and later served in the Spanish-American War and then in the Philippines. There he earned a Silver Star and a Congressional Citation. In World War I, he earned a French Croix de Guerre and a U.S. Distinguished Service Medal. After the war, he was instrumental in establishing Camp Palacios in 1925, renamed Camp Hulen in 1930 in his honor. In 1935, he retired from service a Lieutenant General, the highest rank in the militia. (2002)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Indianola — 20 mi
  The site of Texas's second port, where Morgan's steamships, Army freight and the first refrigerated beef passed until the hurricanes of 1875 and 1886, now mostly under Matagorda Bay.
• Half Moon Reef Lighthouse and Linnville — 23 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.

More markers nearby

• Site of Camp Hulen — steps away
• Palacios Cemetery — 1.1 mi
• Palacios Pavilions — 1.7 mi
• First Presbyterian Church of Palacios — 1.8 mi