Sarahville de Viesca, Site of Colonial Capital

Sarahville had a short life and a long afterlife in the name. The Handbook of Texas says the town grew to about 200 people before settlers left in 1836, and the Falls County entry calls it the town that died overnight. The Handbook says the Municipality of Viesca, presumably named when the town was founded, became the Municipality of Milam on December 26, 1835. It warns against confusing the town with Viesca in Coahuila or with a townsite Stephen F. Austin proposed on the Lavaca River. Fort Viesca protected the settlers.

What the plaque says

Sarahville de Viesca, Site of Colonial Capital Founded 1834 by Sterling C. Robertson, colonizer of a 100 by 200-mile area embracing all or part of 30 later Texas counties. Situated near falls of Brazos River, where over a stony ford passed much traffic between east and southwest Texas, this was Robertson Colony capital. An important Sarahville site was land office, where settlers applied for their titles. Town was named for Robertson's mother, and for Agustin Viesca, Governor of the province of Coahuila and Texas. Target of Indian hostilities, Sarahville was abandoned, 1836. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Calvert — 21 mi
  A railroad cotton town of 1868 on State Highway 6 that claimed the largest cotton gin in the world and elected Black men to county and state office during Reconstruction.
• Armstrong Browning Library — 26 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 27 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 27 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.

More markers nearby

• Falls County — steps away
• Bucksnort — 3.2 mi
• Falls of the Brazos River — 4.3 mi
• Rev. Nelson T. Denson and Marlin Missionary Baptist Church — 4.6 mi