Imagine you are a settler traveling to Texas. The year is 1821, and you and your family are braving the weather and terrain in a covered wagon. In the south, the seasons are milder, and the winters are less harsh; what a good decision to find a home here. Water is the first priority. It does not take long to find it: the Brazos. The 11th longest river in the United States forming a continuous watershed 1,050 miles long from New Mexico, the Brazos River comprises 44,620 square miles, 42,000 of which are in Texas and empty into the Gulf of Mexico. This enormous river begins in Stonewall County Texas and ends near Freeport, Texas.
Richmond locals gathered on the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio railroad bridge to have a look at the floodwaters of the Brazos River during the flood of 1899. Flooding along the Brazos continues to be a problem, which created the need to develop system of levy districts along its banks to protect developments in the area from the rising floodwaters when they occur. Source: Railroads of Fort Bend County by Jim Vollmar and the Rosenberg Railroad Museum.
The history is as extensive as the river. First named Tokonohono by the Indians of the Caddoan linguistic group, the Brazos was explored by some of the most famous expedition travellers such as Rene Robert Cavelier and Sieur de La Salle who named it the Maligne. The present name of the river came from the Spaniards. One of the many legends told is of Francisco Vazquez de Coronado and his men who were about to perish from lack of water when Indians guided them to a small stream. So grateful to be saved, they named it Los Brazos de Dios or the arms of God.
Another story tells of a Spanish ship in the Gulf of Mexico. The sailors lost their drinking water supply in a storm and noticed a muddy streak in the water. They followed the streak and found fresh water from the Brazos. Another time, droughts had plagued the area and people were dying, but the Brazos River always had a never ending stream to help sustain life in the late 1700s.
The first permanent residents who settled on the Brazos River were Anglo Americans. John McFarland, a member of Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred, founded San Felipe de Austin at the Atascosito Crossing of the Brazos. The town became the colonial capital of Texas. Fort Bend County was established in the 1820s as part of Austin’s colony and developed on the bottomlands of the Brazos River. The land connecting to the river was ideal for farming and ranching. Cattle, cotton and sugar were the most important products of this region. As plantations were established along the Brazos in pre-Civil War years, homes were showplaces of some of the wealthiest men. Prior to the Civil War and secession, citizens of Fort Bend County elected Benjamin Franklin Terry as a representative for the Secessionist Convention. Colonel Terry and his business partner, William J. Kyle, bought a plantation and named it Sugar Land in 1853. This large sugar and cotton plantation became one of the most successful in the country.
When the war broke out, Terry organized and was the leader of Terry’s Texas Rangers also known as the first Texas Rangers. Terry and his officers hand-picked their recruits, and they fought bravely. Colonel Terry died as a Civil War hero in 1861.
Today the Brazos River is an asset to the residents of Fort Bend County and Texas. The Brazos River Authority established in 1929 has controlled the waters of the Brazos basin. This river is an important source of water for power, irrigation and many other services. It has been dammed for flood control and municipal use. Recreational possibilities abound such as man-made lakes for boating, canoeing, kayaking, rafting, camping, fishing and hiking. With such a vivid history, our goal for the future should be to keep it clean and useful for many generations to come.