Town Named for Gen. Jose Antonio Mexia

The Handbook of Texas says the Houston and Texas Central Townsite Company named the town in 1871 for Enrique Mexía and the family, not simply for the general. In November 1833 Coahuila and Texas granted eleven-league tracts in Limestone, Freestone and Anderson counties to his son Enrique and daughter Adelaida. Enrique managed the estates and died in Mexico City in 1896. José Antonio Mexía, born in Jalapa by his own account, was executed in 1839 after defeat at Acajete; the Handbook says many Mexicans judged him a traitor for bringing foreign adventurers into the country.

What the plaque says

Town Named for Gen. Jose Antonio Mexia Military officer and promoter of Texas colonization. Served as secretary of Mexican legation to United States, 1829-1831. Led victorious Mexia Expedition to expel centralists in Matamoros, 1832. Mexican senator, 1833-1834; he first supported president Santa Anna, but fought him when he became a dictator. Fled to Texas, 1834. Attacked Tampico in 1835. Took Tampico, Jan. 1839, but was shot on order of Santa Anna after defeat near Puebla May 3. Son and daughter settled on family land, Limestone County, about 1870. They donated site for town of Mexia in 1871. 1967

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site — 5.6 mi
  Where Limestone County Confederate veterans gathered each summer from 1888, later a water supplier in the Mexia oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site on the Navasota River.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 8.3 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Old Fort Parker — 8.9 mi
  A rebuilt 1830s family stockade near the Navasota River, where a May 1836 attack killed men of the Parker settlement and took five captives, among them nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker.

More markers nearby

• Origin of the Texas State Teachers Association — 0.2 mi
• First Baptist Church of Mexia — 0.2 mi
• Alfonso Steel — 0.8 mi
• Albert R. Mace — 0.8 mi