Velasco, Texas
Encyclopedia
Velasco was a town in Texas
, United States
, that was later annexed by the city of Freeport
. Founded in 1831, Velasco is situated on the east side of the Brazos River in southeast Texas. It is sixteen miles south of Angleton, Texas
, and four miles from the Gulf of Mexico
.
The town's early history is closely tied with the Battle of Velasco
and the Texas Revolution
. Velasco was an important entry point for American settlers in Texas. In 1836 following the decisive Battle of San Jacinto
, Velasco was made the first capital of the Republic of Texas
by interim President David G. Burnet
. In 1837, the final actions of the Battle of Brazos River
occurred there.
on the east side of the mouth of the Brazos River
where present day Surfside
is located. In 1821, the schooner Lively landed at the site with thirty-eight men, the first of Stephen F. Austin
's colonists. At the time, Texas was part of Mexico, but Austin had obtained permission to bring American settlers into the area, with the first colonists settling in what is now southern Brazoria County
.
Velasco consisted of a single house until 1831, when Mexico set up a customs port there and dispatched troops to help the customs collector. More than 25,000 settlers entered through the port. The town was named for a Mexican general, as was Quintana
, on the opposite side of the river.
Velasco was the site of the Battle of Velasco
in 1832. The battle was fought on June 26, 1832 between Texas colonists and Mexico four years before the Texas Revolution. The Mexican commander during the conflict, Domingo de Ugartechea, tried to stop the Texans from transporting a cannon up the Brazos River to attack the city of Anahuac
. The Texans were led by Brazoria Alcade, John Austin
, and schoolteacher and farmer Henry Smith
. The Texan militia eventually prevailed over the greatly outnumbered Mexicans. Ugartechea surrendered after a three day battle, once he realized he would not be receiving reinforcements. His soldiers had also run out of ammunition.
In 1834, a cholera epidemic reduced the population to 100 in 1834. After the Battle of San Jacinto
, President David G. Burnet made the town the temporary capital of the Republic of Texas. Government records were housed at Fort Velasco until the first capital of Texas was established at Columbia. General Antonio López de Santa Anna
signed the Treaties of Velasco
on May 14, 1836.
graduates, were established by 1838. Comfortable hotels were built to accommodate visitors and patrons of the racetrack located a short distance upriver. A local post office operated from 1846 until 1891, when mail was rerouted through Quintana. Antebellum Velasco had business houses, homes, a hotel, boardinghouses, wharves, and a customhouse. Riverboats embarked from the wharves for Galveston
and New Orleans. With completion of the first intracoastal canal
to Galveston Bay in 1856, however, the town began to decline as shipping was diverted to Galveston.
William Windom
on July 7, 1891. Over $1,000,000 worth of lots were sold to Midwesterners looking for greener pastures and a seaside environment. By 1892, New Velasco had 136 business establishments and 167 residences, an electric light plant, and a planing mill
. Jetties were built by the Brazos River Channel and Dock Company by 1897, and the newly dug deepwater port ran to a depth of 17½ feet.
Much of Velasco, first owned by John A. and William H. Wharton
, was later sold to an agent of the English Rothschild family
, who planned to establish a great seaport at the site. By 1896 the community had a new lighthouse, several churches, schools, hotels, a national bank, a cottonseed oil mill, cotton gins, special and general stores, and two weekly newspapers. Old Velasco and Crescent Beach could be reached by electric railroad.
Velasco rebuilt slowly, enduring fluctuations of poverty and prosperity. By 1914, with a population of 1,000 and only one newspaper remaining, the community had a fish and oyster plant and shipped cattle, cotton, cane sugar, and syrup. The population dropped to a low of 400 in the mid-1930s, when the town supported twelve businesses.
diverted the course of Brazos River three miles west, leaving the four-mile segment of the Old Brazos as a stand-alone ship channel.
Diversion of the Brazos River and the formation of a tidal estuary deep enough to accommodate large vessels in the old river channel subsequently revived both Velasco and nearby Freeport
. Construction of chemical-industry facilities during World War II
increased the population from 900 in 1940, when the city was incorporated with E. F. Roeller as mayor, to 5,200 by 1950.
With a population estimated at 4,000 in 1956, Velasco was annexed by Freeport on July 27, 1957. The community subsequently became part of the Brazosport industrial and port area and Brazosport Independent School District
.
Clemens Unit
is located in an unincorporated area
in Brazoria County, near Velasco.
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, that was later annexed by the city of Freeport
Freeport, Texas
Freeport is a city in Brazoria County, Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area and is situated in Southeast Texas. As of the 2000 U.S...
. Founded in 1831, Velasco is situated on the east side of the Brazos River in southeast Texas. It is sixteen miles south of Angleton, Texas
Angleton, Texas
Angleton is a city in and the county seat of Brazoria County, Texas, United States, within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. Angleton lies at the intersection of State Highway 288, State Highway 35, and the Union Pacific Railroad. The population was 18,130 at the 2000 census...
, and four miles from the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
.
The town's early history is closely tied with the Battle of Velasco
Battle of Velasco
The Battle of Velasco, fought June 25–26, 1832, was the first true military conflict between Mexico and settlers in Texas. It began when Texan insurgents attacked Fort Velasco, located in what was then Velasco and what is now the present day city of Freeport...
and the Texas Revolution
Texas Revolution
The Texas Revolution or Texas War of Independence was an armed conflict between Mexico and settlers in the Texas portion of the Mexican state Coahuila y Tejas. The war lasted from October 2, 1835 to April 21, 1836...
. Velasco was an important entry point for American settlers in Texas. In 1836 following the decisive Battle of San Jacinto
Battle of San Jacinto
The Battle of San Jacinto, fought on April 21, 1836, in present-day Harris County, Texas, was the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Sam Houston, the Texian Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican forces in a fight that lasted just eighteen...
, Velasco was made the first capital of the Republic of Texas
Republic of Texas
The Republic of Texas was an independent nation in North America, bordering the United States and Mexico, that existed from 1836 to 1846.Formed as a break-away republic from Mexico by the Texas Revolution, the state claimed borders that encompassed an area that included all of the present U.S...
by interim President David G. Burnet
David G. Burnet
David Gouverneur Burnet was an early politician within the Republic of Texas, serving as interim President of Texas , second Vice President of the Republic of Texas , and Secretary of State for the new state of Texas after it was annexed to the United States of America.Burnet was born in Newark,...
. In 1837, the final actions of the Battle of Brazos River
Battle of Brazos River
The Battle of the Brazos River was an engagement fought in the Brazos River on April 17, 1837, between the Mexican Navy and the Texas Navy.-Background:...
occurred there.
History
Velasco was originally located on the Gulf CoastGulf Coast of the United States
The Gulf Coast of the United States, sometimes referred to as the Gulf South, South Coast, or 3rd Coast, comprises the coasts of American states that are on the Gulf of Mexico, which includes Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida and are known as the Gulf States...
on the east side of the mouth of the Brazos River
Brazos River
The Brazos River, called the Rio de los Brazos de Dios by early Spanish explorers , is the longest river in Texas and the 11th longest river in the United States at from its source at the head of Blackwater Draw, Curry County, New Mexico to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico with a drainage...
where present day Surfside
Surfside Beach, Texas
Surfside Beach is a city in Brazoria County, Texas, United States that is situated on the Gulf of Mexico just west of Galveston Island. The city is part of the Greater Houston area. The population was 763 at the 2000 census...
is located. In 1821, the schooner Lively landed at the site with thirty-eight men, the first of Stephen F. Austin
Stephen F. Austin
Stephen Fuller Austin was born in Virginia and raised in southeastern Missouri. He was known as the Father of Texas, led the second, but first legal and ultimately successful colonization of the region by bringing 300 families from the United States. The capital of Texas, Austin in Travis County,...
's colonists. At the time, Texas was part of Mexico, but Austin had obtained permission to bring American settlers into the area, with the first colonists settling in what is now southern Brazoria County
Brazoria County, Texas
Brazoria County[p] is a county in the U.S. state of Texas, located on the Gulf Coast within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. Regionally, parts of the county are within the extreme southern-most fringe of the regions locally known as Southeast Texas. Brazoria County is among a...
.
Velasco consisted of a single house until 1831, when Mexico set up a customs port there and dispatched troops to help the customs collector. More than 25,000 settlers entered through the port. The town was named for a Mexican general, as was Quintana
Quintana, Texas
Quintana is a town in Brazoria County, Texas, United States. The population was 38 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Quintana is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it is water.-Demographics:As of the census of 2000,...
, on the opposite side of the river.
Velasco was the site of the Battle of Velasco
Battle of Velasco
The Battle of Velasco, fought June 25–26, 1832, was the first true military conflict between Mexico and settlers in Texas. It began when Texan insurgents attacked Fort Velasco, located in what was then Velasco and what is now the present day city of Freeport...
in 1832. The battle was fought on June 26, 1832 between Texas colonists and Mexico four years before the Texas Revolution. The Mexican commander during the conflict, Domingo de Ugartechea, tried to stop the Texans from transporting a cannon up the Brazos River to attack the city of Anahuac
Anahuac, Texas
Anahuac is a city in the U.S. state of Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. The population of the city was 2,210 at the 2000 census. Anahuac is the seat of Chambers County and is situated in East Texas.- History :...
. The Texans were led by Brazoria Alcade, John Austin
John Austin (soldier)
John Austin was a Texian settler, one of Stephen Austin's Old Three Hundred, and the Texian commander at the Battle of Velasco during the Anahuac Disturbances before Texas Revolution....
, and schoolteacher and farmer Henry Smith
Henry Smith
Henry Smith may refer to:*Henry Smith , English Puritan preacher*Henry Smith , English politician and jurist*Henry Smith , Governor of Rhode Island...
. The Texan militia eventually prevailed over the greatly outnumbered Mexicans. Ugartechea surrendered after a three day battle, once he realized he would not be receiving reinforcements. His soldiers had also run out of ammunition.
In 1834, a cholera epidemic reduced the population to 100 in 1834. After the Battle of San Jacinto
Battle of San Jacinto
The Battle of San Jacinto, fought on April 21, 1836, in present-day Harris County, Texas, was the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Sam Houston, the Texian Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican forces in a fight that lasted just eighteen...
, President David G. Burnet made the town the temporary capital of the Republic of Texas. Government records were housed at Fort Velasco until the first capital of Texas was established at Columbia. General Antonio López de Santa Anna
Antonio López de Santa Anna
Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón , often known as Santa Anna or López de Santa Anna, known as "the Napoleon of the West," was a Mexican political leader, general, and president who greatly influenced early Mexican and Spanish politics and government...
signed the Treaties of Velasco
Treaties of Velasco
The Treaties of Velasco were two documents signed at Velasco, Texas, on May 14, 1836, between Antonio López de Santa Anna of Mexico and the Republic of Texas, in the aftermath of the Battle of San Jacinto ....
on May 14, 1836.
Antebellum period
Between the Texas Revolution and the Civil War, Velasco and Quintana served as summer resorts for wealthy plantation families of the region. Galveston businessmen Samuel May Williams and Thomas F. McKinney established warehouses and organized shipping at the port. A seminary for young ladies, Velasco Female Academy, and a school for young men, taught by OxfordUniversity of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
graduates, were established by 1838. Comfortable hotels were built to accommodate visitors and patrons of the racetrack located a short distance upriver. A local post office operated from 1846 until 1891, when mail was rerouted through Quintana. Antebellum Velasco had business houses, homes, a hotel, boardinghouses, wharves, and a customhouse. Riverboats embarked from the wharves for Galveston
Galveston, Texas
Galveston is a coastal city located on Galveston Island in the U.S. state of Texas. , the city had a total population of 47,743 within an area of...
and New Orleans. With completion of the first intracoastal canal
Intracoastal Waterway
The Intracoastal Waterway is a 3,000-mile waterway along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States. Some lengths consist of natural inlets, salt-water rivers, bays, and sounds; others are artificial canals...
to Galveston Bay in 1856, however, the town began to decline as shipping was diverted to Galveston.
U.S. Civil War
During the U.S. Civil War, the port of Velasco was fortified by Confederate troops and eight gun batteries, and Union ships were forced to go to New Orleans for drinking water, food, and fuel. The port played an active role in the exchange of cotton for European guns, ammunition, milled goods, and medicines for army and home use. Federal vessels attempted to stop vital trade and fired upon shore defenses, patrols, and small craft seeking to outrun them.Postbellum decline
With the ruin of the plantation system after the war, Velasco and Quintana declined as resorts. In 1875 a hurricane destroyed even the old town records. By 1884, Old Velasco's residents numbered only fifty.New Velasco
The new town of Velasco was surveyed and laid out four miles upriver in 1891, when a new Velasco post office was established. The port was officially opened by the United States Secretary of the TreasuryUnited States Secretary of the Treasury
The Secretary of the Treasury of the United States is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, which is concerned with financial and monetary matters, and, until 2003, also with some issues of national security and defense. This position in the Federal Government of the United...
William Windom
William Windom
This page is about the former United States politician. William Windom was an American politician from Minnesota. He served as U.S. Representative from 1859 to 1869, and as U.S. Senator from 1870 to January 1871, from March 1871 to March 1881, and from November 1881 to 1883...
on July 7, 1891. Over $1,000,000 worth of lots were sold to Midwesterners looking for greener pastures and a seaside environment. By 1892, New Velasco had 136 business establishments and 167 residences, an electric light plant, and a planing mill
Planing mill
A planing mill is a facility that takes cut and seasoned boards from a sawmill and turns them into finished dimensional lumber. Machines used in the mill include the planer and matcher, the molding machines, and varieties of saws...
. Jetties were built by the Brazos River Channel and Dock Company by 1897, and the newly dug deepwater port ran to a depth of 17½ feet.
Much of Velasco, first owned by John A. and William H. Wharton
William H. Wharton
William Harris Wharton was an early colonist, political leader and orator in Texas.Wharton was born in Virginia and was raised by an uncle following the deaths of his parents. He graduated from the University of Nashville and was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1826...
, was later sold to an agent of the English Rothschild family
Rothschild family
The Rothschild family , known as The House of Rothschild, or more simply as the Rothschilds, is a Jewish-German family that established European banking and finance houses starting in the late 18th century...
, who planned to establish a great seaport at the site. By 1896 the community had a new lighthouse, several churches, schools, hotels, a national bank, a cottonseed oil mill, cotton gins, special and general stores, and two weekly newspapers. Old Velasco and Crescent Beach could be reached by electric railroad.
Galveston Hurricane and aftermath
The population was 3,000 when the Galveston hurricane of 1900 wrecked the town.Velasco rebuilt slowly, enduring fluctuations of poverty and prosperity. By 1914, with a population of 1,000 and only one newspaper remaining, the community had a fish and oyster plant and shipped cattle, cotton, cane sugar, and syrup. The population dropped to a low of 400 in the mid-1930s, when the town supported twelve businesses.
Brazos River diversion and World War II
The port of Freeport had been built on the Brazos River four miles upstream. The river below the port required frequent dredging in order to accommodate larger ships. In 1929, U.S. Army Corps of EngineersUnited States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...
diverted the course of Brazos River three miles west, leaving the four-mile segment of the Old Brazos as a stand-alone ship channel.
Diversion of the Brazos River and the formation of a tidal estuary deep enough to accommodate large vessels in the old river channel subsequently revived both Velasco and nearby Freeport
Freeport, Texas
Freeport is a city in Brazoria County, Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area and is situated in Southeast Texas. As of the 2000 U.S...
. Construction of chemical-industry facilities during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
increased the population from 900 in 1940, when the city was incorporated with E. F. Roeller as mayor, to 5,200 by 1950.
With a population estimated at 4,000 in 1956, Velasco was annexed by Freeport on July 27, 1957. The community subsequently became part of the Brazosport industrial and port area and Brazosport Independent School District
Brazosport Independent School District
Brazosport Independent School District is a school district based in Freeport, Texas .The district serves the cities, towns, and villages of Clute, Freeport, Jones Creek, Lake Jackson, Oyster Creek, Quintana, Richwood, and Surfside Beach...
.
Government and infrastructure
The Texas Department of Criminal JusticeTexas Department of Criminal Justice
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is a department of the government of the state of Texas. The TDCJ is responsible for statewide criminal justice for adult offenders, including managing offenders in state prisons, state jails and private correctional facilities, funding and certain...
Clemens Unit
Clemens Unit
Clemens Unit is a prison farm of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in unincorporated Brazoria County, Texas. The prison, with about , is located at the intersection of Farm to Market Road 2004 and Texas State Highway 36...
is located in an unincorporated area
Unincorporated area
In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...
in Brazoria County, near Velasco.