Third Site for Travis County Government

Travis County covers 989 square miles on the eastern edge of the Edwards Plateau, divided by the Balcones Escarpment, with juniper and mesquite country to the west and oak, cottonwood and pecan to the east; the Colorado crosses it from northwest to southeast. Josiah and Mathias Wilbarger, Reuben Hornsby, Jacob M. Harrell and John F. Webber were among its settlers of the early 1830s. News of the Alamo's fall sent them fleeing, and settlement resumed slowly under the threat of Comanche raids. In June 1835 Thomas Jefferson Chambers surveyed part of a grant covering the future site of Austin.

What the plaque says

Third Site for Travis County Government Courthouse built here in 1939, 91st year of Travis County, which in early Texas was in municipality of Mina (later Bastrop), or Travis District, named for Wm. B.Travis, commander at the Alamo. Site of present-day Austin was chosen in 1839 (4th year of the Republic of Texas) as location for capital, and named for the father of Texas. Local county government began immediately, with setting up of militia beats. Mormon settlers in 1839 built the first jail and also the first gristmill. Congress in January 1840 formally created the county, which by then had 856 people. 5 forts were in operation to guard against Comanche Indians, whose raids went on as late as 1863. Dams in the Colorado River provided industrial power and created fine recreation lakes. State government, University of Texas, Bergstorm Air Force Base, public institutions and private businesses employ working forces from the county population of 237,000. The county's 125th anniversary was attended 1964 under the administration of Judge J. H. Watson and commissioners Robert Barker, Lawson Boothe, N. L. Gault and Arthur Swenson. Historic county emblem was restored and sponsored by county auditor Weldon S.Horton. Flag was designed by Mrs.Jessie McIlroy Smith. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Capitol — 0.3 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 0.6 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• Harry Ransom Center — 0.8 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.9 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.

More markers nearby

• Zachary Taylor Fulmore — steps away
• Wooldridge Square — steps away
• Site of Haynie-Cook House — steps away
• First United Methodist Church of Austin — steps away