The beginnings of Fort Bend County

Historical marker on or near the site of Fort Bend, just off of Second Street in Richmond, Courtesy

Welcome to the Fort Bend County History blog! I am Chris Godbold, the Curator of Collections for the Fort Bend County Museum Association which includes Fort Bend County Museum and the George Ranch Historical Park.
I will be writing this blog on the history of Fort Bend County and hope through these articles to share important parts of the county's past with you and to hear your comments and stories in return.
In this way, we can explore our past together and come to new conclusions about the present.
A good place to begin is the origins of Fort Bend County. The first white settlers to come to Fort Bend County were members of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred who landed at the mouth of the Brazos River in 1822.
These men moved up the river and settled at what is now Richmond. They built a fort" at the spot that was really no more than a one room log cabin. This fort would come to be named Old Fort" or Fort Bend."
The neighborhood that grew up around the fort was called the Fort Settlement." There were also settlements elsewhere along the Brazos and along Oyster Creek, Big Creek and the Bernard River by the time of the Revolution (1835-36).
After Texas won its independence, the Congress of the Republic of Texas passed the act creating Fort Bend County on December 29, 1837, naming the county for the log cabin fort built along the Brazos.
USEFUL LINKS
www.fortbendmuseum.org
www.georgeranch.org