George Alexander Pattillo

Pattillo's offices ran in a long line. The Handbook has him on the General Council from January 13 to March 11, 1836, and on his way to join the army when San Jacinto was fought. In 1837 he was an associate justice of Jefferson County and in 1838 a justice of the peace. He sat in the House in 1841 and 1842 and then in the Senate for Jefferson and Jasper counties. When Orange County was organized he served as its first chief justice, in 1852 and 1853. He died in 1871 at Bunn's Bluff on the Neches.

What the plaque says

George Alexander Pattillo A veteran of the War of 1812, Georgia native George Alexander Pattillo (1796-1871) migrated to this area in the early 1830s. He served on the local Committee of Correspondence created by the Convention of 1832 and on the General Council of the provisional government established by the Consultation of 1835. During the Texas Revolution of 1836, Pattillo, who had earlier received a Mexican land grant, joined with other area settlers to aid the Texas Army. Arriving at San Jacinto the day after the decisive battle, he was commissioned by Texas President David G. Burnet to direct the formation of Jefferson County, which included this area. He also became an associate justice for the new county and was a postmaster for the settlement of Pattillo's station, later the Terry community of central Orange County. In the early 1840s Pattillo served this area as a Representative and a Senator in the Republic of Texas Congress, where he actively supported annexation to the United States. In 1852 he was elected the first judge of the newly-formed Orange County. An active Masonic leader in southeast Texas, Pattillo died in 1871 and was buried in a family plot at Bunn's Bluff on the Neches River, where he had lived since 1844. (1981)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stark Museum of Art — 0.3 mi
  A white-marble museum in Orange built by the Stark Foundation and opened in 1978, holding Western art, American Indian art, Audubon's Birds of America and Steuben glass, free to enter.
• Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center — 1.4 mi
  More than 250 acres on Adams Bayou, begun by H. J. Lutcher Stark in 1937, with garden rooms, a cypress-tupelo swamp, a heronry blind and free pontoon tours in season.
• Museum of the Gulf Coast — 19 mi
  Port Arthur's regional museum in a former bank building: fossils, Native Americans, the petroleum story, a 125-foot history mural and Halls of Fame for musicians, athletes and artists.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 21 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.

More markers nearby

• The Sawmill Industry in Orange County — steps away
• Old Niblett's Bluff, C.S.A. — steps away
• Atakapan Indians of Orange County — steps away
• Site of End of the Line Station — steps away