John Kirby Allen

Houston became the capital through a bargain. In October 1836 John Allen promised Congress that the brothers would build an adequate capitol at their own expense and rent other buildings to officials for seventy-five dollars a month, the buildings to revert to them if the government left. Congress accepted, and the seat of government moved from Columbia in May 1837. When John died of congestive fever in 1838 he left no will; his brothers first waived their shares to their parents, but after both parents died they demanded them from Augustus.

What the plaque says

John Kirby Allen Born in Canasareaugh, New York 1810. Came to Texas in 1832. Died in Houston August 18, 1838. John K. Allen was a member of the first Congress of the Republic (1836-1837) from Nacogdoches County. He and his brother, Augustus C. Allen, on August 25, 1836 purchased a league of land from Mrs. T. F. L. Parrott for five thousand dollars, on which on August 29, 1836 they founded the town of Houston named in honor of the hero of San Jacinto.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 0.5 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.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 1.5 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 — 1.7 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.
• Emancipation Park — 1.7 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.

More markers nearby

• George Allen — steps away
• John W. Moore — steps away
• Robert Barr — steps away
• Gravesite of John Kirby Allen — steps away