The Original Townsite of Montopolis

The land south of the Colorado lay in the Santiago Del Valle grant, owned by Michel B. Menard, who sold it to Thomas F. McKinney in February 1839; Tannehill never owned any of it. A Montopolis post office opened on the south bank near the ferry crossing in January 1897 and closed in 1902, but the name held. In 1950 seventy residents petitioned to rename Miller Lane and Boothe Lane as Montopolis Drive. A school for African American children, opened about 1891, was rebuilt after a 1935 storm and closed in 1962 with desegregation.

What the plaque says

The Original Townsite of Montopolis Jesse Cornelius Tannehill (1797-1863) founded the original townsite of Montopolis; however, indigenous peoples had lived in and travelled through the area for thousands of years. El Camino Real de los Tejas, a historic trade route, forded the Colorado river near the present-day Montopolis bridge just east of this site. In 1839 Tannehill, his wife, Jane L. (Richardson) Tannehill (1803-1855), their children and an enslaved African American family moved to a headright of 4,428 acres on the Colorado river, from which 800 acres were surveyed for the town tract. A deed recorded on July 2, 1839, established the location of a platted town on the left (north) bank of the Colorado (this marker is located near the center of the original town tract). The ambitious settlement was named Montopolis ("mont" is Latin for "mountain" and "polis" is Greek for "city"). Several families settled in the community. James Smith (1790-1845) was likely the first settler in 1838. His 1841 home is preserved one-half mile west on Boggy Creek Farm. Tannehill began laying out Montopolis in early 1838 before Edward Burleson laid out nearby Waterloo, which was renamed Austin upon its selection as the Republic of Texas' seat of government. There is evidence that Montopolis was also in the running for this honor. The Montopolis venture died within two years of its conception. By 1841, business partnerships were dissolved and the land was sold. Proximity to the growing Capital of Austin and the growing community of Govalle contributed to the end of the original Montopolis. The name endured in the area of the original town tract into the 20th century. In 1897, after a post office named Montopolis was established on the right (south) bank of the river, the community that developed around it adopted the name. When the city of Austin annexed that community in the early 1950s, memory of the original townsite location faded, but the neighborhood of Montopolis continues to thrive as a vibrant, proud community. (2019)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• George Washington Carver Museum — 2.1 mi
  East Austin's museum of Black history and culture, grown from a segregated branch library moved across town in 1933, with a permanent exhibit on Juneteenth at its core.
• Texas State Cemetery — 2.1 mi
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 2.5 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• LBJ Presidential Library — 2.9 mi
  A ten-story travertine archive on the University of Texas campus holding 45 million pages from a presidency of civil rights laws, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.

More markers nearby

• Parque Zaragoza — 1.2 mi
• Zavala Elementary School — 1.7 mi
• Blackshear Elementary School — 1.9 mi
• Tillotson College — 1.9 mi