Site of Santa Anna

Joseph Pulsifer, who managed the Santa Anna store, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1805. In fall 1835 the firm bought fifty acres on the Neches and laid out Beaumont, later growing it to 200 acres with Nancy Tevis and Joseph Grigsby. He chaired the Committee of Correspondence, served as secretary of the Committee of Safety, and was Beaumont's first postmaster. Before the 1854 courthouse, county commissioners held court on the second floor of his home and store. Beaumont absorbed Santa Anna and Tevis Bluff. Pulsifer died in Beaumont in 1861.

What the plaque says

Site of Santa Anna The Santa Anna townsite was platted in 1835 by surveyor and land speculator David Brown of San Augustine County. It became the center of political and military activities for the area west of the Neches River to the present western boundary of Jefferson County, including southern Hardin County. Thomas Huling of Jasper and Henry Millard, later an officer in the Republic of Texas Army, owned a store in Santa Anna which they hired Joseph Pulsifer to manage. Pulsifer arrived on July 21, 1835, and in letters to his sister in Connecticut he recounted activities in this area before and after the Texas Revolution. His letters, a valuable written record of early Jefferson County history, referred to families living in the vicinity and the existence of two stores and a school building in Santa Anna. Following the Texas Revolution the boundary of Jefferson County was extended westward. The town of Beaumont, founded by Henry Millard, Nancy Tevis, and Joseph Grigsby, and consisting of only three houses in April 1836, was organized and became county seat. The growth of Beaumont, absentee land ownership, and the death of town founder David Brown in 1847 led to the demise of Santa Anna. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 2.3 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 — 2.5 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.
• Village Creek State Park — 13 mi
  A 2,466-acre state park on one of the few free-flowing creeks in Texas, with a launch for the Village Creek Paddling Trail, boat rentals and sandy-upland trails in the Big Thicket.
• Museum of the Gulf Coast — 16 mi
  Port Arthur's regional museum in a former bank building: fossils, Native Americans, the petroleum story, a 125-foot history mural and Halls of Fame for musicians, athletes and artists.

More markers nearby

• Jean Baptiste Chaison — 0.9 mi
• Harry James' Childhood Homesite — 1.0 mi
• Port of Beaumont — 1.2 mi
• Jefferson County Courthouse — 1.2 mi