Historical Marker
Stafford's Point
Stafford, Fort Bend County · Texas
Erected 1977
The post offices trace the settlement's names: Stafford's Point from 1854 to 1869, a short-lived Staffordville in early 1869, then Stafford until 1918, reopening in 1929. In 1896 the village had a corn mill and gin, a physician, two grocers, two general stores, a hotel, a lawyer, a saloon and about 300 people, but by 1914 it was down to about 100 and a store, a blacksmith and a telephone. After incorporation in 1956 it grew quickly, from 1,485 people in 1961 to 5,582 in 1980 and 8,397 in 1990.
What the plaque says
Stafford's Point One of Stephen F. Austin's "Old 300," William J. Stafford (1764-1840), founded the settlement of Stafford's Point on the 6819.7-acre land grant he received in the winter of 1824. Bringing his family and slaves from his Louisiana sugar plantation, he was planting much land and had a sugar mill and cotton gin in operation by 1834. His manager, Clement c. Dyer (1800-64), a lawyer, political leader, and (later) county judge, married Stafford's daughter, Sarah (1809-74). Early residents of the Stafford's Point community included families of Sam Bell, Elijah Roark, Dr. P. W. Rose, Moses Shipman, and Mr. West. Dr. Rose, a former U. S. Army surgeon, tended the sick and also hired (1834) a teacher for his children and ten others studying in a one-room schoolhouse. In the "Runaway Scrape" of 1836, the settlers and their slaves fled east as Santa Anna's Army camped here, pillaging homes and mills. Stafford's Point was resettled after the War for Independence, and again prospered. The buffalo Bayou, Brazos & Colorado, first railroad in Texas, was completed from Harrisburg to this village in 1853. From 1915 to 1925, a number of Sicilian families moved here from brazos County. Stafford's Point was incorporated into the town of Stafford in 1956. (1977)
Where it stands
29.62375, -95.58312 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 14 miThe 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.
- The Menil Collection — 14 miJohn 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 — 14 miAn 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.
- Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 15 miA museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.