Neches Indian Village

The Neche were one of the eight tribes of the Hasinai confederacy, whose name means "our own people." They lived along the river that carries their name, in what is now Cherokee and Houston counties, with a lesser fire temple in their principal settlement. Spain founded the mission and presidio of San Francisco de los Neches near them in 1716; it was abandoned in 1719, reestablished in 1721 and gone by 1730. By the 1800s the Neche had merged into surviving Hasinai groups, who were placed on the Brazos reservation in 1855 and moved to Indian Territory in 1859.

What the plaque says

Neches Indian Village Here at the opening of the 18th century stood a village of the Neches Indians. Their name was given to the river and later to a mission, San Francisco de los Neches, established nearby. With the Cherokees, the Neches Indians were expelled from Texas in 1839.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Caddo Mounds State Historic Site — 0.3 mi
  Three earthen mounds of an ancestral Caddo village and ceremonial center on the old El Camino Real, settled about A.D. 800 and still sacred to Caddo people, with a grass house and visitor center.
• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 27 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.

More markers nearby

• Zebulon Pike Campsite — 0.4 mi
• Mission Santissimo Nombre de Maria — 1.5 mi
• Site of Lacy's Fort — 4.4 mi
• Site of the Delaware Indian Village — 4.7 mi