La Salle County

Who held power in La Salle County shows in its numbers. People of Mexican descent were about half the county in the state census of 1887 and about two-thirds, 5,492 people, by 1930. Early politics was contentious and sometimes violent, with an election-day slogan of Vote right or fight, and Mexican Americans were shut out of political power for decades. After the mobilization of the 1960s and 1970s they held Cotulla's mayor's office and several council seats by 1974, and in 1983 the county elected its first Hispanic judge.

What the plaque says

La Salle County The Presidio Rio Grande Road brought travelers to this area for centuries. In 1852 the U. S. Army built and garrisoned Fort Ewell, for protection. The first permanent settler, William A. Waugh, opened a rancho near the Cibolo Crossing on the Spanish Road in 1856. On Feb. 1, 1858, the county was created and named for Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle (1643-1687). The first French explorer of Texas. The county's first post office opened in 1871 at the Guajuco Crossing. County government was organized Nov. 2, 1880, at Crarey's Rancho. Various courthouses existed before 1883, when Cotulla became county seat.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brush Country Museum — steps away
  La Salle County's local museum, with a segregated-schools display that sets the scene for the Welhausen School, where Lyndon Johnson taught Mexican American children in 1928-29.
• Chaparral Wildlife Management Area — 14 mi
  A 15,200-acre South Texas brush country research tract in La Salle and Dimmit counties, open to the public in spring and summer, with a short accessible trail and a long ranching past.

More markers nearby

• Cotulla City Park — steps away
• First Presbyterian Church of Cotulla — steps away
• The First United Methodist Church of Cotulla — steps away
• First Deep Artesian Well — steps away