Michel B. Menard

Menard reached Texas as a fur trader, not a townsite promoter. Born near Montreal, he worked for the American Fur Company, traded with a band of Shawnees in Missouri and Arkansas, and was chosen a chief before he applied for citizenship at Nacogdoches in 1829. By 1834 he held 40,000 acres. His claim to the east end of Galveston Island was disputed in the First Congress, and he paid the Republic $50,000 to clear it. He outlived three of his four wives, and his own tall stories make his biography hard to pin down.

What the plaque says

Michel B. Menard (December 5, 1805 - September 2, 1856) A native of Canada, Michel B. Menard came to Texas in 1829. He lived in Nacogdoches and Liberty before settling in Galveston in 1833. He was one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836, and later represented Galveston in the Congress of the Republic of Texas. As one of the founders of the Galveston City Company he was instrumental in the development of the island. Menard County was created in 1858 and named in his honor. Recorded - 1994

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Moody Mansion — 1.1 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 1.3 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.
• Galveston Seawall and the 1900 Storm — 1.4 mi
  The concrete wall along the Gulf that Galveston built after the hurricane of September 8, 1900, which killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people in a city of 38,000.
• The Strand — 1.5 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.

More markers nearby

• Lent Munson Hitchcock — steps away
• Louis Trezevant Wigfall — steps away
• Lt. Commander Edward Lea — steps away
• Nicholas D. Labadie — steps away