Jose Antonio Navarro Ranch

Navarro's ranch was one of the earliest settlements around Seguin, where some forty land titles had been granted by 1833. In 1831 Umphries Branch received a league on the northeast bank of the Guadalupe, thirty-eight miles above Gonzales, and in 1833 he and his family built a cabin said to be the first Anglo residence on the future townsite, helped by his father-in-law, John Sowell. On August 12, 1838, thirty-three of the Gonzales Rangers joined Joseph S. Martin in laying out a town near Walnut Branch. Archaeologists have found mammoth remains east of Seguin and campsites along the river.

What the plaque says

Jose Antonio Navarro Ranch Born in San Antonio, Jose Antonio Navarro (1795-1871) held several offices in the Mexican government before becoming an active participant in the movement for Texas independence. Owner of numerous land holdings in this part of the state, Navarro purchased land along Geronimo Creek (approx. 1.2 mi. E) for farming and ranching activities in 1834. The ranch house served as a haven for his family during his captivity by the Mexican militia in 1841 until his return to the ranch in 1845. A signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, Navarro owned the ranch until 1853. (1986, 1998)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 10 mi
  The hilltop where Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels raised the Adelsverein's headquarters in 1845, now the museum and archive of the German colony that became New Braunfels.
• Gruene Historic District — 11 mi
  A cotton town on the Guadalupe that the boll weevil emptied, rescued in the 1970s by a kayaking architecture student, with a dance hall that says it has never closed.
• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 18 mi
  The headsprings of the San Marcos River, among the longest-inhabited places in North America, once an amusement park with a swimming pig and now seen from glass-bottom boats.
• Natural Bridge Caverns — 23 mi
  The largest known cavern in Texas, found in 1960 by four college cavers under a ranch family's land, entered beneath a 60-foot limestone bridge and still growing.

More markers nearby

• Navarro School — 1.1 mi
• Juan Seguin School — 4.8 mi
• Site of Dietz Community — 4.8 mi
• Colonel Nathaniel Benton — 4.8 mi