Ira Hobart Evans

Evans ended the war as a brevet major and acting assistant adjutant general of the Twenty-fifth Army Corps, Army of the James, and came to Texas with Sheridan's occupation force. After his discharge he raised stock north of Corpus Christi but lost his investment through a dishonest partner. He resigned from the Freedmen's Bureau at Wharton in 1868, angered by superiors he thought incompetent. As speaker he opposed an 1870 election law that postponed the next election by a year, which he held violated the constitution; a Republican caucus denounced him, and his office was declared vacant.

What the plaque says

Ira Hobart Evans (April 11, 1844 - April 19, 1922) Born in New Hampshire, Ira H.Evans grew up in Vermont. During the Civil War he served in the Union Army, attaining the rank of major. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor and in 1865 was a member of the Honor Guard for the funeral of President Lincoln. Following the war, Evans was stationed in Texas along the Rio Grande until 1866. After his discharge from the Army in 1867, he returned to the area as an agent for The Freedmen's Bureau. He was elected to the Texas Legislature in 1869 and in 1870 was chosen Speaker of the house, the first Republicna and youngest person to date to hold that office. He was removed as Speaker on May 10,1871, in a dispute over interpretation of the 1869 state constitution. Evans began a business career in 1872 and, as President of the New York & Texas Land Company, became a leader in Texas railroads and land development. He moved to Austin in 1885. Active in civic affairs, he served as President of the board of Tillotson College (now Huston-Tillotson College) from 1911 to 1920. Evans bought this house in 1892 and hired noted architect Alfred Giles to remodel it to its current appearance. He moved to California in 1921 and, after his death in San Diego in 1922, was buried in Vermont. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Capitol — 0.5 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 0.8 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.9 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• Harry Ransom Center — 1.0 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.

More markers nearby

• Wooldridge Square — steps away
• Zachary Taylor Fulmore — steps away
• Third Site for Travis County Government — 0.2 mi
• Texas and the Civil War State Military Board — 0.2 mi