Harris County

In 1930, with 359,328 residents, Harris County passed its rivals Dallas and Bexar counties by more than 100,000 people, and it has remained the most populous county in Texas, topping a million in 1960. Its voters backed the Democrat in nearly every presidential election from 1848 to 1948, the exceptions being Ulysses S. Grant in 1872 and Herbert Hoover in 1928. After Dwight D. Eisenhower carried it decisively in 1952 the county trended Republican, voting for the party's candidate in every election from 1956 through 2004. The 2014 census counted 4,441,370 people.

What the plaque says

Harris County Inhabited during the 17th century by Karankawa and Orcoquiza Indians, and considered in 1756 by Spain for site of Presidio de San Agustin de Ahumada, this region was settled permanently in 1822 by the colonists of Stephen F. Austin. In 1824 John R. Harris (1790-1829) received title to 4,428 acres of land in Buffalo Bayou-Braes Bayou Junction area, and started village named for his family for for Harrisburg, Pa., founded by his grandfather. Colonial settlements in the vicinity were Cedar Bayou, Lynchburg, Midway, Morgan's Point, New Kentucky, and Stafford's Point. First step toward local government was taken when Stephen F. Austin and the Baron de Bastrop met (1824) with colonists at the house of William Scott, Midway, to explain colonization laws. Harrisburg, a town by 1826, was one of the original and most influential colonial municipalities, with a major role in Texas War for Independence, which won freedom in 1836. The county of Harrisburg (later Harris) was created Dec. 30, 1836. The capital of the Texas Republic was within its boundaries for several years. In the Civil War, it was a command and ordnance center (1863-65), of Trans-Mississippi Department, Confederate Army. It has since grown into a center for world commerce. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 0.8 mi
  Ten historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.
• Emancipation Park — 1.8 mi
  The Third Ward park that freedpeople bought for Juneteenth in 1872, rebuilt in 2017 on Emancipation Avenue and still the center of the city's June 19 celebration.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 2.1 mi
  A museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.
• Rothko Chapel — 2.8 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.

More markers nearby

• Harris County Courthouse of 1910 — steps away
• Allen's Landing — steps away
• M. D. Anderson — steps away
• Old Market Square — steps away