Blog Posts About San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site

By Michael Moore, San Felipe de Austin Project Contract Historian

As a project contract historian for San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site, I recently spent a week at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, researching San Felipe resources in their archival collections. Surprisingly, some of the best early Texas history archives outside of Texas are in the Western Americana...

By Bryan McAuley, San Felipe de Austin Site Manager

While the life of the town of San Felipe de Austin was brief, it managed to play many roles during the colonial era. One of the more obscure was its role as the capital of the provisional government over a proclaimed Mexican state of Texas (separate from the state of Coahuila). San Felipe held this status from mid-November...

By Bethanie DePalermo, San Felipe de Austin Staff

A striking pink granite bench with the simple inscription, “Austin’s Old 300,” sits under an oak tree at San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site. The bench itself provokes questions from visitors and creates an interpretive opportunity for staff and volunteers. Guests are surprised and intrigued to learn that descendants from...

By Bryan McAuley, San Felipe de Austin Site Manager

On March 29, 1836, the town of San Felipe—the capital of Stephen F. Austin's colony and now the location of our San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site—was burned to the ground to keep it from being captured by the advancing Mexican Army.

Among the San Felipe residents who witnessed the burning before fleeing eastward as part...