Peyton Bland

Cow Bayou, where Bland built his home and store, runs about 30 miles through Buna, Mauriceville, Vidor and Bridge City and enters the Sabine River. By 1911, Wikipedia says, nearly all Orange County rice farmers relied on it. The Cow Bayou Swing Bridge, 806 feet long, opened in 1940 as the last major piece of Texas Highway 87. In 1963 Congress authorized a channel 100 feet wide and 13 feet deep for the first 7.7 miles, from the mouth to Orangefield, which took effect in 1967.

What the plaque says

Peyton Bland Born in 1815 in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, Peyton Bland became a vital figure in Orange County. He migrated to Texas as a young man and at Orange in 1835 enrolled to serve I the Texas Revolution. Bland participated in the Grass Fight and the Battle of San Antonio before being discharged. Later reenlisting, he performed guard duty during the Battle of San Jacinto, among other responsibilities. Bland married Susan (Susannah) Harmon in Beaumont in 1838. The couple moved and settled on an Orange County farm, raising 13 children. Bland built his home on Cow Bayou, north of here, where in addition to farming he ran a local store. Bland also took part in the thriving Texas cattle industry, driving cattle to market in New Orleans. A local resident, later describing Bland, remembered "When he entered the room, he filled the door. He was huge, with pistols on his hips – he scared us kids to death." Bland once again joined the military when he enrolled in the Orange County Coast Guard in 1862, during the Civil War. This company was attached to the Second Regiment, First Brigade of Texas militia. After the war, he served briefly as an Orange County commissioner. In 1873, Bland died of pneumonia, and his family buried him in a now unknown site near the San Bernard River in Wharton County. Today, Peyton Bland is remembered not only as an important contributor to Orange County and Texas, but also as a pioneer who worked in farming, business and cattle in times of peace and as a military man when called on during times of war. (2007)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center — 7.5 mi
  More than 250 acres on Adams Bayou, begun by H. J. Lutcher Stark in 1937, with garden rooms, a cypress-tupelo swamp, a heronry blind and free pontoon tours in season.
• Stark Museum of Art — 8.5 mi
  A white-marble museum in Orange built by the Stark Foundation and opened in 1978, holding Western art, American Indian art, Audubon's Birds of America and Steuben glass, free to enter.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 14 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.
• McFaddin-Ward House — 15 mi
  A Beaux-Arts Colonial Revival mansion finished in 1906 and lived in by one family for 75 years, with free guided tours of three furnished floors, the carriage house and gardens.

More markers nearby

• Claiborne West — 3.0 mi
• Orangefield — 3.8 mi
• Site of World War II P. O. W. Camp — 4.5 mi
• Site of The Kishi Colony — 4.8 mi