Site of Thompson's Ferry

Jesse Thompson ran the ferry from 1828 to 1834. Santa Anna led a column downriver toward it on April 9, 1836, to avoid Moseley Baker's rear guard at San Felipe. On the morning of April 12 the Mexicans saw a Black ferryman on the east bank; Col. Juan N. Almonte, who spoke English well, hailed him, and when he poled the ferry across, Santa Anna and his staff sprang from the bushes and took it. The crossing outflanked both Baker and Wyly Martin at Fort Bend. After San Jacinto some 1,500 Mexican troops under Filisola were stationed near here.

What the plaque says

Site of Thompson's Ferry Where a part of the Mexican Army under command of General Antonio López de Santa Anna crossed the Brazos on April 14, 1836 en route to an engagement with the Texans * This occurred one week later at San Jacinto. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazos Bend State Park — 19 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• The Menil Collection — 25 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Rothko Chapel — 25 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 25 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.

More markers nearby

• John McNabb — 1.7 mi
• Thomas Jefferson Smith — 1.8 mi
• Walter Moses Burton — 1.8 mi
• Site of the Home of Randal Jones — 1.8 mi