Muldoon Community

Father Muldoon served Texas only from April 1831 to August 1832, the only priest appointed to the colony's non-Hispanic settlers. Colonists who nominally accepted Catholicism to secure their land came to be called Muldoon Catholics. In 1834, when Austin was held incommunicado in Mexico City, Muldoon was his only visitor and found a bondsman for him. In 1837 he helped William H. Wharton escape from prison at Matamoros, and as late as 1839 he performed a wedding in Houston as vicar general of the Republic.

What the plaque says

Muldoon Community Located in southwest Fayette County, the Muldoon area was first settled in the 1830s. The community was named in honor of Father Miguel Muldoon and is situated on land acquired in 1831 through a Spanish land grant from Stephen F. Austin. Father Muldoon was of Irish heritage, educated in Spain and moved to Mexico in 1821 when he entered the priesthood. In Mexico, he met Stephen F. Austin, who gave eleven leagues of land to Muldoon in return for his ministry to the colonists. Four of these leagues were located in Fayette County. The San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad was built through the area in 1887 and the town grew quickly around it. James Kerr established the first post office in January 1888. Within a decade, Muldoon boasted its own physician, general merchandise stores, churches, a barber shop, saloon, meat market, blacksmith shop, hotel, woodworking shop, lumberyard, cotton gin, railroad depot and a school. The Muldoon courthouse building is a rarity. Constructed in 1890, it is one of six justice precinct courthouses that were built in Fayette County. Over the years, it has been used as a mattress factory, canning kitchen, site for quilting bees, voting location, community meeting place and a museum. Muldoon is also known for its Muldoon blue sandstone. Taken from the A. B. Kerr quarry, the sandstone was used in the construction of several sites in Texas, including courthouses, a jail, churches and later in the construction of Galveston and other coastal jetties. Muldoon was once a thriving community, but declined as the railroad industry became less relevant. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 21 mi
  A museum at Serbin of the Wends, a Slavic people from Lusatia whose congregation of nearly 600 crossed on the Ben Nevis in 1854, losing seventy-three to cholera on the way.
• Bastrop State Park — 24 mi
  The westernmost loblolly pines in the United States, cut off from the East Texas forest by a hundred miles of post oak, burned almost entirely in 2011 and growing back.

More markers nearby

• Robert Hancock Hunter — 8.7 mi
• Site of Wood's Fort — 8.7 mi
• Flatonia — 9.1 mi
• Czech Catholic Union of Texas — 9.3 mi