Morgan Steamship Line

Charles Morgan's Texas service did not begin in 1835. The steam packet Columbia was working the New York to Charleston mail run that year, and her first trip from New Orleans to Galveston came on November 25, 1837, the year the Handbook of Texas gives for Morgan's first scheduled line. In early 1838 she ran between Galveston and Velasco. After the rival Cuba ran aground in 1839, the Columbia had the route to herself for about four months, and Morgan and Haggerty sold her in January 1840.

What the plaque says

Morgan Steamship Line First mail and passenger steamship service from the United States to Texas. In 1835 put in operation the "Columbia" from New Orleans to Galveston, bringing in settlers and goods; soon had three cargo and mail lines along the Texas coast and to Mexico. In 1850 based fleet at Indianola, to handle corn, cotton, sugar, beef. Brought in U.S. Army supplies for western forts. Carried to U.S. mints loads of gold and silver coming overland to the Gulf from the mines in northern Mexico. Morgan ships were seized in 1861 for Civil War duty -- some by the U.S., some by the Confederacy. In 1866 Charles Morgan (1795-1878) resumed operations. In 1869 Morgan branched into rail transportation -- built (1873) Gulf, Western Texas and Pacific Railroad to Cuero; bought other railroads. Soon captains of the Morgan line became residents and business and civic leaders here and in other Texas towns. The Houston Ship Channel was built by Morgan in 1875 and controlled by affiliates for many years. The Morgan line was sold, 1883, to Southern Pacific Railroad, but continued to operate under old name. Last of the ships were sold to the U.S. Government in 1941 for military use during World War II. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum — 0.5 mi
  A cattle-country museum in Cuero's 1903 Knights of Pythias Hall, telling the Guadalupe Valley's 1866 drive north and the Sutton-Taylor feud that bloodied DeWitt County.
• Spoetzl Brewery — 25 mi
  The brewery a Czech and German railroad town started in a tin shed in 1909, run through Prohibition by a Bavarian who had brewed in Cairo, and then by his daughter.
• De León Plaza — 26 mi
  The central plaza of Guadalupe Victoria, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas, founded by Martín De León in 1824 and taken from his family after 1836.
• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 26 mi
  Victoria College's museum of thirteen thousand years on the middle Texas coast, from Clovis hunters and Karankawa potters to La Salle's lost Fort St. Louis and the first ranches.

More markers nearby

• Cuero Land and Immigration Company — 0.3 mi
• Early Texas Bandstands — 0.3 mi
• World War II Air Training School Brayton Flying Field — 0.3 mi
• St. Michael's Catholic Church — 0.3 mi