Jose Antonio Navarro

Navarro's name reached this county while he held a state Senate seat. The Handbook of Texas says the 1846 legislature honored him for his years of service, and Corsicana took the name he proposed. He was twice elected to the Senate and declined to run in 1849. In the Congress of the Republic he had pressed for Tejano rights at a time when many Anglo Texans held Tejanos in contempt. In 1861 he defended Texas's right to secede as a states' rights principle, though he was too old to serve.

What the plaque says

Jose Antonio Navarro Lover of liberty. Foe of despotism. Born in San Antonio, Texas, February 27, 1795. Died January 13, 1871 and buried there. Member of the Legislature of Coahuila and Texas, 1821; land commissioner of De Witt's colony 1831 and of Bexar District, 1834-1835; signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, 1836; member of the Congress of the Republic of Texas, 1838-1839; a commissioner of the Santa Fe Expedition, 1841; member of the Constitutional Convention of 1845; senator in the Legislature of Texas, 1846-1849. Navarro County gratefully bears his name. Corsicana was named by him for the isle of his father's birth - Corsica. Erected by the State of Texas 1936 with funds appropriated by the federal government to commemorate one hundred years of Texas Independence.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroleum Industry Park — 0.5 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 21 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 30 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.

More markers nearby

• Thomas Ingles Smith — steps away
• Corsicana in 1860-1872 — steps away
• Site of the First Courthouse — steps away
• Corsicana — steps away