West Fork of The San Jacinto River

The plaque places the Patiri along this river and calls them Indians. Linguists now count them as Atakapan-speaking people. In the 1700s they ranged between the Bidai and the Akokisa, in the country between present Houston and Huntsville, and from 1749 to 1751 they were among the groups represented at San Ildefonso Mission near Rockdale. After that the Patiri vanish from the record, probably absorbed by the Bidai and Akokisa. The Akokisa, also called Orcoquisac, camped on the San Jacinto's banks. By 1850 virtually no trace of the area's native peoples remained.

What the plaque says

West Fork of The San Jacinto River Patiri and other Indians lived here in Archaic and Neo-American periods. When Spanish incursions began in the 1700s, the river was named either for hyacinths or for the saint on whose day it was discovered. Pioneers from the United States settled on the San Jacinto before Stephen F. Austin founded his colony to the west in 1821. Upon their wish to join him, he took this area into his colony in 1824. The San Jacinto won wold fame when beside its lower channel Mexican Dictator Santa Anna with 1700 troops was defeated on April 21, 1836, by General Sam Houston and Texas volunteers fighting for freedom. Riverside farms became plantations, often shipping cotton by keelboat down the San Jacinto, in 1845-61. Until woodlands vanished during the years 1880-1930, sandhill cranes and bear abounded. Reforestation, begun in 1936, brought back timber industries and small game. The lake now makes this a residential and recreational paradise, but covers such landmarks as Grandma Ed'Ards fishing hole, Indian Camp Creek, and the White Sugar Sand Crossing. Downriver, after this fork and the East Fork unite, the San Jacinto forms part of the Houston Ship Channel, the link between Port of Houston, the Gulf, and the high seas. (1975)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site — 26 mi
  A cedar-log dogtrot cabin of 1834 on the road through Anderson that grew into a seventeen-room inn and post office for travelers of the Republic, kept by one family until 1976.

More markers nearby

• Former Homesite of Joseph L. Bennett — 4.7 mi
• Lake Creek Settlement — 7.4 mi
• John M. Wade — 7.4 mi
• The Old Methodist Churchyard — 7.5 mi