Point Bolivar

The Long expedition's second life began at Point Bolivar. After the 1819 campaign collapsed, James Long reorganized there in April 1820 with José Félix Trespalacios, Benjamin Milam and José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, then broke with Trespalacios. The expedition lingered at Fort Las Casas until September 19, 1821, when Long sailed with fifty-two men to take La Bahía. The town fell on October 4, and four days later he surrendered to Colonel Ignacio Pérez. He was shot by a guard in Mexico City about six months afterward, and the early filibustering era in Texas ended.

What the plaque says

Point Bolivar Headquarters for Long's Expedition which attempted to free Texas from Spanish rule in 1819. Named in honor of Simon Bolivar (1783-1830), leader in the Spanish-American War for independence. Here Mrs. Long and a small group remained until news of her husband's death came in 1822. A light house was erected here by the Republic of Texas.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — 4.6 mi
  An iron barque launched in Aberdeen in 1877 that called at Galveston twice, ended up smuggling in the Adriatic, and was bought back from a Greek scrapyard to sail again from Pier 22.
• 1892 Bishop's Palace — 4.7 mi
  Nicholas Clayton's stone house on Broadway for the railroad lawyer Walter Gresham, later home to Galveston's Catholic bishops and one of the most admired Victorian houses in the country.
• The Strand — 4.7 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.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 5.1 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.

More markers nearby

• Bolivar Point — steps away
• Fort Travis — steps away
• SS Selma — 2.5 mi
• Galveston: Gateway to Texas — 2.5 mi