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A TOUR OF NACOGDOCHES

  • MOUND STREET CADDO SITE (OLD WASHINGTON SQUARE)
    The Caddo Indians established it as a distinct ceremonial site sometime between 1250 and 1450 A.D. Their large mortuary mounds formed a triangular plaza; the eastern mound is still intact. Mound Street. Named for the pre-historic Caddo Indians burial mounds which existed on both sides of the street as late as the 1930s. Today, only one of the mortuary mound remains (at 516 North Mound). Archeological work in this mound was begun in 1985 and artifacts from this and other mounds can be viewed at the Stone Fort Museum.

  • THE BATTLE OF NACOGDOCHES - 1832
    (Texas Historical Marker)     In 1832, the citizens of Nacogdoches fired one of the opening guns of the Texas Revolution. The citizens, both Mexican and Anglos, attacked the Mexican garrison under the command of Col. Jose Piedras. The latter held the fortified town center. The garrison was able to defend themselves until Adolphus Sterne showed the newly arrived Redlanders from San Augustine how to out-flank the Mexicans by circling the natural by going through the Washington Square area. The Battle cleared East Texas of Mexican troops and made the independence movement much less dangerous.

  • DOWNTOWN AREA
    The streets of the old town center have foregotten more history than most towns in Texas will ever be able to manufacture. The history made in the Old Stone Fort must make even the Alamo jealous, serving as the headquarters of the Spanish, the Mexicans, three independent republics, and Sam Houston's first law offices even before there was a Texas.

    Fredonia Street. Named after the Republic of Fredonia of 1826 when Haden Edwards, Adolphus Sterne and other Nacogdoches citizens tried to establish an independent republic. The motives were never very clear; the revolt quickly collapsed. The word Fredonia, derived from the word freedom, was a common appellation along with Columbia for the United States in the 18th century and has retained it popularity locally even to today.

    Hospital Street. An 18th century Spanish hospital gave this street its name. In the open plaza area, across from the Fredonia Hotel, the Spanish held bull fights in colonial times. The Old Cabildo or Jail also once stood on this street. Locals have always thought it amusing that if you follow Hospital Street far enough to the east you end eventually in Oak Grove Cemetery!

  • PLAZA PRINCIPAL-1779
    Designed by Don Antonio Gil Y'Barbo, the Principal Square was the civic square, housing governmental and commercial buildings. Y'Barbo, the Provincial Governor, configured the streets for defensive reasons; the streets of the old Spanish town center, however, are a nightmare for modern surveyors and automobile traffic. Main Street. The north side of the square is El Camino Real, the "The King's Highway," one of the oldest roads in North America. In 1685, the French explorer LaSalle said that the Indian paths through the area were as wide and as well-defined as the road from Paris to Orleans. In 1713 and 1716, another French explorer, St. Denis, mapped two routes across the state from the Rio Grande to the eastern terminal of both, Nacogdoches.

    Main Square in the 1880s.

    The Old Stone Fort, built by Y'Barbo in 1779.

  • COURT HOUSE SQUARE (Main at North)
    OLD CHURCH SQUARE Built: Circa 1779. The Nacogdoches County Court House is located on the small or second square of Nacogdoches of colonial times. It was called the Religious Square or Old Church Square because of the Old Cathlic Church of colonial times which stood there: "Our Lady of the Pilar." The Old Spanish Cemetery, where Don Antonio Gil Y'Barbo was buried, was also on the SW corner of the square. In 1909, the County Courthouse was moved to the SW corner; the present building is the second to occupy the corner.

  • OAK GROVE CEMETERY AND THE STERNE-HOYA HOUSE
    East on Hospital Street, at the eastern edge of downtown, stands Oak Grove Cemetery, one of oldest and most historic cemeteries in the state of Texas. Two blocks south, stands the Adolphus Sterne House, the most historic house in Nacogdoches. There are some very important "ghosts" in this eastern end of the "Oldest Town in Texas."

    Lanana Street.
    Named after the Bayou Lanana, which means "Child's Nurse or Nanny" in Spanish.

    Lanana and Banita Creeks.
    The downtown of Nacogdoches is located in a natural peninsula or fortress area formed by the Bayou Lanana on the east and Bayou Banita (Little Bath) on the west. Both the Indians and the Spanish valued this natural location. The two creeks, deceivingly innocent, are part of enormous watersheds which sometimes flood with destructive force. The floodplains, however, provide "two green lungs" for the modern city as they run through the city. The conflueance of the two is just below Adolphus Sterne's house. "The Eyes of Father Margil." Along the banks of the Lanana at a sharp bend, just below Oak Grove Cemetery, is the site of the miracle performed in 1717 byFather Margil. Margil, the founder of Mission Guadalupe and one of the few North Americans to be considered for sainthood, relieved a terrible drought by making two openings in the wall of the Lanana from which streams of water flowed.

  • OAK GROVE CEMETERY (Lanana Street at Hospital)
    Established: Circa 1837. Known in documents as the "Old American Cemetery," Oak Grove was established on land orignally granted to Empresario Haden Edwards by the Mexican Government in 1826. (The earlier Spanish cemetery was located where the County Court House now stands. The first European buried in the Spanish Cemetery was Father Mendoza in 1718.) The first marked grave in Oak Grove is 1837. The oldest part of the cemetery lies on either side of the main entrance. Four signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence rest here: Thomas J. Rusk, Charles S. Taylor, John S. Roberts, and William Clark. Rusk served as the First Secretary of War of the Republic, Member of the Convention of 1836, Chief Justice of Texas, United States Congressman and Senator. Two veterans of the Battle of San Jacinto are buried here: E. E. Hamilton and Captain Hayden Arnold. Among the other famous Texans in the cemetery are: Haden Edwards, leader of the Fredonia Rebellion; General Kelsey Harris Douglass, Commander-in-Chief of the forces that drove the Indians out of East Texas in 1839; Frost Thorn, Texas' first millionaire; Dr. Robert Irion, Houston's personal physician and later Secretary of State in his Cabinet; Adolphus Sterne, Houston's close friend and Financier of the Texas Revolution; Dietrich Rulfs, Master Architect of Nacogdoches; Karle Wilson Baker, First Woman of Texas Letters.

  • THE STERNE-HOYA HOUSE (211 South Lanana at Pilar)
    Built: 1828. This is the most historic house in Nacogdoches. Nicholas Adolphus Sterne, an immigrant from Cologne, Germany, built the house for his bride Ava Catherine Rosine Ruff shortly after they married. Sterne first came to Nacogdoches in 1824 and opened a merchantile trade here in 1826. He participated in the Fredonia Rebellion in 1826 and almost lost his life and his lands when he was convicted of treason.Sterne got off by the intervention of his Masonic friends. The house was both the social and the political center ofactivity in the years before independence from Mexico. Sam Houston boarded with the Sternes when he first arrived in Texas and was baptized into the Catholic Church in the front parlor of the house with Mrs. Sterne serving as his godmother. Although Sterne promised not to take up arms against the Mexicans again, he did aid others in their armed rebellions. In 1832, he aided the Redlanders who saved the Battle of Nacogdoches. In 1835, after recruiting two companies of men from New Orleans to come to fight for Texas independence, Sterne hosted one company at this house when they arrived in Nacogdoches. The yard was the scene of the famous "Feast of Liberty" in 1835. Sterne's life in this house he detailed in a diary; this diary gives us a good idea of the domestic life of citizens in the middle of the 19th century. The house was sold to the Hoya family in the 1868 and was given by them to the City of Nacogdoches in memory of Sterne in 1959.

  • THE BIVOUAC AND BANQUET FOR THE NEW ORLEANS GREYS, NOVEMBER, 1835
    Led by Adolphus Sterne, citizens of Nacogdoches helped outfit a volunteer force, the New Orleans Greys, to fight in the Texas War for Independence. One company of Greys, traveled overland to San Antonio by way of Nacogdoches in November of 1835. The 50-100 men camped for a few days at this site near Sterne's home. They were honored with a "Feast of Liberty" in the orchard in front of the house. At the banquet, bear, beef, mutton, turkeys, raccoon, and other specialties were served. With glasses of Rhine wine from Sterne's cellar, toasts were make and speeches delivered.The Greys had walked into Nacogdoches; they left on horses with arms provided by the citizens. They reached San Antonio before the seige of Bexar, December 5-9, 1835. Most of the volunteers died in later battles of the Revolution, many at the Alamo.

  • Pilar Street.
    The Catholic Church in Nacogdoches--Nuestra Senora del Pilar de Nacogdoches--established after the demise of the mission was located on the west end of this street and gave the street its name; it took its name from Our Lady of Pilar in Spain and stood where the County Court House now stands. The street was the principal residential street in the early 19th century. Sam Houston, John S. Roberts, and Thomas J. Rusk, as well as the Spanish Governors, all lived on Pilar; Adolphus Sterne lived on the of Pilar and Lanana.




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    ©Jere L. Jackson, Stephen F. Austin State University, PO Box 13013, Nacogdoches, Texas 75962 USA
    E-mail: jjackson@sfasu.edu