Historic park planned for hole in ground in West Columbia

February 2008

U.S. Water News Online

WEST COLUMBIA, Texas -- A historical park is being planned for this Brazoria County town to honor a hole in the ground.

It's not just any hole. It's a cistern that may once have provided water to Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston and other Texas founders. Locals think it once held rainwater to serve the tiny wooden building that was one of the first homes of the Republic of Texas.

That old building was long ago abandoned and left to rot. It was finished off by the great 1900 hurricane. The cistern recently unearthed near Texas 35 may be the last architectural link to those heroic times.

Now local history fans are planning to build a historical park at the site, with the cistern as its focal point.

"This is going to be the premier historical park in the state of Texas," said Sands Weems III known almost universally as "Sandy" as he stood in the mud and admired the hole.

Weems, 74, has long studied local history. His ancestor, Mason Locke Weems II, came to Texas in 1838. Another ancestor, Mason Locke Weems, gained fame as the biographer of George Washington who made up the story of a young Washington chopping down his father's cherry tree.

Weems' mind seemed to drift back to late 1836 when Columbia, as the town was then known, had about 2,100 residents and was one of the biggest towns in Texas.

The Republic of Texas was born in turmoil during a revolution. Interim governments were headquartered at Washington-On-The-Brazos, San Felipe, Harrisburg, Velasco (today's Freeport) and Galveston.

When it came time for a place to establish a regular government, leaders chose Columbia. The government set up housekeeping there in October 1836, putting offices and meeting rooms in several buildings.

The House met in a frame store that was built by Leman Kelsey in 1833. Secretary of State Stephen F. Austin, who ran the colony that gave birth to Columbia, also had his office there.

Francis Lubbock, comptroller of the republic and later governor of the state of Texas, described the town as "the capitol of a republic, with the heads of departments, the Congress in session, and hosts of people in town. President, judges, representatives, captains, generals, men of mark, that would attract attention and respect in any country."

Columbia's time as the capital lasted only three months.

Brothers Augustus and John Allen offered to build a fine, two-story capitol building in their new town called Houston, 55 miles to the north.

Congress voted to move to Houston in 1837.

Houston was the capital until 1839, when it was moved out to the frontier to a hamlet renamed Austin. It would briefly move back to Houston and Washington-On-The-Brazos, but would end up in Austin.

Columbia went back to the business of being a regular town. The buildings that once housed the government were used for other purposes.

DRT wanted to buy

In 1898, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas became interested in buying the old Kelsey store building, said archaeologist Doug Boyd of Prewitt and Associates, who is preparing a report on the site.

By then, it had become identified as the first capital of the Republic, although other buildings in the town also had held government offices.

Before the DRT could buy the building, it was destroyed in the 1900 hurricane.

In 1932, the organization put a large stone historical marker at the site. It still stands on the edge of Texas 35, not far from the cistern.

In 1977, locals built a replica of the building in a park a few blocks away.

Sandy Weems' grandfather, Sands Weems, a West Columbia businessman, bought the old capitol site in 1929, eventually building a Western Auto store and a strip shopping center.

When developers bought the block from the Weems family last year, they agreed to set aside a 30-foot strip of land along the highway to become a historical park. Developers also promised $50,000.

Cisterns were common in places such as Columbia, where the shallow groundwater wasn't very good, Boyd said.

The hole, 6 feet wide and 61/2 feet deep, was lined with plaster and locally made bricks. It held rainwater collected from the roof.

Apparently early leaders drank more than water. Boyd said archaeologists found parts of several 19th century alcohol bottles in what appears to be an outhouse pit at the site.

Most of the debris found was from the early 20th century, Boyd said, but the remains of a ceramic serving platter that probably dated from the 1830s were also found during archaeological digs at the site last month.

Many old bricks and fragments of bricks also were discovered, he said, lending credence to the story that the cistern's brick domed top was pushed in when it was filled in to make way for the parking lot.

Another hole probably held the remains of the old structure's brick chimney, he said.

No certainty

Boyd said archaeologists may never be able to say with absolute certainty that the cistern belonged to the first capitol building, but there is a high probability that it did.

Sandy Weems said a local group has been formed to raise money and build the park, which is expected to cost $275,000 to $300,000. It will have a 10-foot-wide, 337-foot-long walkway with 20 granite markers telling about different highlights of the history of the Republic of Texas.

The cistern, which was recently refilled with sand to protect it and visitors, will get a new brick dome and will be the centerpiece of the park, which has not yet been named.

Though the park explores West Columbia's history, most of the block will become part of the town's economic future.

A new Walgreens pharmacy is being built there.

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