Major Richard William (Dick) Dowling, C. S. A.

Sabine Pass made Dowling famous, but James R. Ward's Handbook entry finds him under fire earlier. In 1861 he and the Jefferson Davis Guards raided federal outposts on the Mexican border. On January 1, 1863, he took part in Magruder's recapture of Galveston, and three weeks later he commanded the eight-inch Columbiad aboard the steamer Josiah A. Bell against two Union vessels, praised for some of the "prettiest shots" and for saving the Bell's magazine from flooding. The Frank Teich statue that stood here went into city storage in June 2020.

What the plaque says

Major Richard William (Dick) Dowling, C. S. A. (January 14, 1837 - September 23, 1867) Born in 1837 near Tuam, County Galway, Ireland, Richard Dowling emigrated to New Orleans in 1846 during the Irish potato famine. In 1857, Dick married Elizabeth Anne Odlum in Houston. By 1860 he had owned 3 bars, installed Houston's first gas lighting in his home and business, and was a charter member of Houston Hook and Ladder company No. 1. During the Civil War, Dick was first lieutenant, Company F, Cook's Regiment, First Texas Heavy Artillery. He was in command at Fort Griffin in 1863. On September 8 he held fast with only 6 cannon and 47 men inside the fort despite reumors of a Federal invasion and orders to retreat. Twenty-seven ships carrying Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin and 5,000 Union troops sailed into Sabine Pass; Dowling and "the Irish Davis Guards" shot so accurately that Franklin's forces surrendered in 45 minutes. The Confederate Congress called the Battle of Sabine Pass "one of the most brilliant ... achievements ... of this war." Discharged as a major in 1865, Dick reopened his most famous bar, "The Bank of Bacchus." In 1866 he formed the first oil company in Houston. By 1867, he owned more than 22 square blocks of downtown Houston and vast lands across Texas. Dick Dowling died of yellow fever at age 30 and is buried in Houston's St. Vincent's Cemetery. (1998) Incise on back:

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 1.1 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.
• Rothko Chapel — 2.0 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.
• The Menil Collection — 2.0 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 2.0 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.

More markers nearby

• San Jacinto Chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas — 0.3 mi
• Rice University — 0.8 mi
• The Garden Club of Houston — 1.1 mi
• W. L. and Susan Clayton — 1.2 mi